The production of cotton wool is a rather time-consuming and costly business, so you should carefully weigh the pros and cons before starting such a business. Initial minimum costs will amount to at least 2.5-3 million rubles, but they will also pay off if the organization of activity is done in a fairly short period of time - somewhere within a year.
Cotton wool
Most of this pulp is imported to Russia from countries - leading cotton producers: India, China, Pakistan, the USA, Uzbekistan, Brazil. Cotton wool is made from raw materials, which are obtained after processing the fruits of shaggy cotton. When the fruit of the plant ripens, the box opens. Inside it is a soft white fiber with seeds.
It is collected, packaged and delivered to a ginnery, where the fibers are separated from the seeds and sorted according to size. Those that have a length of 2-2.5 centimeters are used for the manufacture of fabrics, and shorter ones are used for the production of cotton wool.
Raw Material Options
The pulp can be made not only from cotton, but also from linen and wool. In terms of consumer qualities, flaxseed wool is closer to cotton, but it is less common. There is also pulp from a mixture of viscose and cotton. Viscose is one of the first man-made fibers, it is obtained by processing natural cellulose. It has high hygroscopicity (the ability to absorb moisture from air), however, both manufacturers and consumers prefer natural materials, since they are less allergenic.
The production of cotton wool and cotton is carried out according to the same technological scheme. For the manufacture of cotton pulp, cotton is selected having a grade not higher than fourth, and waste from primary processing of raw materials and indirect fumes are also used.
The most suitable is considered elastic low-grade cotton, similar in texture to wool. But wool wool is made from natural pure fiber (sheep, camel, goat wool) or from artificial with the addition of cotton.
Necessary equipment
Creating your own production of cotton wool is not so simple. You will need separate rooms for warehouses and a workshop, special equipment. The line for processing cotton fluff, low-grade fiber, and cotton waste includes devices such as a feeder, a condenser, an inclined cleaner, a control station, cotton bunker machines, a particle cleaner, air ducts, and filters.
In the secondary market, the price of such a line will average 700-750 thousand rubles. If you want to buy new devices, then prepare at least 1.2-1.5 million rubles. Yes, not cheap! But such a line for processing raw materials per shift can be served by only three people.
For the manufacture of wool products, you will need separate equipment. For the production of cotton pads and sticks, machines with automatic transportation, sheet cutting, stamping and waste transportation functions, patterning, embossing and an automatic dispenser will be needed.
Conventional wool production
The pulp used for sewing clothes differs from that used in medicine, both in raw materials and in production technology. Ordinary cotton wool is made from clogged fumes - waste generated during the processing of textile fibrous materials. First, they are cleaned of dust on a dust top. High rigidity fibers are pre-split on multi-drum tweezers.Then the raw materials are loosened, mixed and formed into canvases using special equipment.
The basis of the canvases is formed by shapeless fibers, which the roller carding machine turns into a cotton wool removal with a certain structure and thickness. The finished mass is inspected for marriage, pressed and packaged in bales of forty to fifty kilograms. In this form, products are supplied to furniture and clothing factories.
Making medical cotton
Such production has significant differences. The raw materials are first loosened and cleaned on a special loosening and cleaning apparatus. After that, it is cooked under pressure in alkali (at a temperature of not more than 130 degrees) and treated with sodium hyposulfite. Due to this treatment, the physical structure of the fibers and their color change.
As a result of the removal of pectin and nitrogenous substances, the raw material loses its natural yellowish tint and turns white, and also acquires characteristic properties, the main of which is hygroscopicity. Manufacturers of medical cotton wool should pay special attention to the quality of the product, because it is used in medical practice and should be hygienic and sterile.
After the implementation of the described actions, the fibers are treated in the same manner as in the manufacture of ordinary wool. But the work does not end there. At the last stage, the products are sterilized under pressure up to three atmospheres and at a temperature of 125 degrees. Then it is packed and sent to warehouses.
Making Cotton Swabs
You can immediately sell part of the received medical cotton wool, and send part of it to the production of medical products, such as cotton buds. In medical practice, in cosmetology, and in everyday life (when you need to clean hard-to-reach places) they are used quite widely.
For cosmetic purposes, by the way, you can make special sticks with a slightly pointed one end. Using it is very convenient, for example, to draw the contours of the eyes, lips or remove excess varnish from the nails. The second end of the product should have a flat rounded shape. It can be used as an applicator in the process of applying shadows.
Technological process
The production of cotton buds begins with the manufacture of polyethylene (propylene can also be used) their bases on special apparatuses, blowing 500-2000 units of products per minute. The same machines wind the cotton wool on a plastic base.
To this end, the fleece canvas is divided into four ribbons. They are very thin, a meter weighs only about one or one and a half grams. The tape is passed through the funnel, which gives it volume, and wound on a bobbin in this - fluffy - form. To speed up the production process, two tapes come directly to the machine from the tape. The machine cuts the cotton fibers and wraps them on the preheated ends of the plastic base.
Plastic melts when heated, and when cooled, it grasps well with winding. If you use a different base, for example, in the manufacture of wooden sticks, you will have to glue cotton to the ends with glue, and this, of course, will increase the cost of production.
An antibacterial solution is applied to finished products - this is the last stage of production. But you still need to sort the defective products. Of course, manually doing this is problematic. Therefore, automatic sensors are used.
If you use faulty or cheap equipment, then in packages that fall into the hands of consumers, there may be a large number of defective products, and this, as you yourself understand, will negatively affect your reputation. That is why product quality should be taken seriously. Samples of cotton buds should be sent to the laboratory to check the sterility and effectiveness of the applied antibacterial solution.
Cotton Disc Production
Such products also find application in medicine and cosmetology.Usually their surface is made embossed for the convenience of applying an ointment or some other means to the skin. Unlike regular cotton wool, when wetted, the disc does not change its shape.
Products are made from bleached cotton. First, the raw material is placed in the feeding mechanism, then in the baking powder, where the cotton is separated into individual fibers. After that, he is sent to a carding machine with large drums, where the fibers are combed out and formed into a cotton fleece. Several such canvases are layered and squeezed under a press.
The product is considered the better, the more wadded canvas was used in the production. Then the compressed layers are passed through a special apparatus for longitudinal cutting into narrower strips. They, in turn, are passed through a machine, applying a textured pattern to the surface. You can skip this step, the disks do not have to have a relief surface, however, it is believed that consumer properties in this case will be reduced.
The resulting tapes are sent to a punching machine, which cuts out pads of the desired shape (by the way, not necessarily round). At the final stage, cotton pads are packaged in plastic bags using special equipment.
Mineral wool production
Such products have a completely different purpose and are manufactured using completely different equipment. It is used for the production of sound and heat-insulating products or as a heat-insulating material in industry and construction. The raw materials are glass, molten blast furnace slag or igneous rocks.
Manufacturing technology
- Coke and raw materials are loaded into the upper part of the cupola and lowered down, as a result, they turn into alloy.
- By centrifugal, blasting or combined methods, the liquid melt stream is split into fibers.
- In the deposition chamber, a mineral carpet is formed from individual fibers, then the bonding elements are dried and hardened.
Perhaps the most widely used variety of mineral wool is stone (basalt). The technology of its manufacture is similar to the work of a volcano. The production of basalt wool is carried out in a furnace at a temperature of 1500 degrees. First, a fiery liquid alloy is made from rocks, then it is pulled into a fiber and coated with a binder. Next, the carpet is subjected to heat treatment and cut into products of the desired size.
