EFFECT OF AN IMPROVED FINE-IMPURITY COTTON CLEANER ON HVI FIBER QUALITY PARAMETERS OF MACHINE-HARVESTED S-6524 COTTON

Abstract

Machine harvesting increases the need for effective seed-cotton cleaning because leaves, bracts, stems and mineral particles may enter the harvested mass together with open-boll cotton. At the same time, excessive mechanical action during drying, cleaning, ginning and lint cleaning can reduce fiber length uniformity, increase short-fiber content and lower the commercial value of lint. This study evaluates the HVI fiber-quality response of S-6524 cotton after cleaning with an improved fine-impurity cleaner and compares the results with three existing-process tests and the natural-fiber reference. The HVI 900-SA dataset included upper-half mean length (UHML), uniformity index (Unf), short fiber index (SFI), micronaire (Mic), elongation (Elg), strength (Str), reflectance (Rd), yellowness (+b), trash code (Trash), trash particle count (Cnt), and trash area (Area). The improved cleaning variant produced UHML 1.12 in, Unf 79.2%, SFI 7.0%, Mic 3.8, Elg 6.7%, Str 28.3 g/tex, Rd 70.2%, +b 10.6, Trash 4.4, Cnt 10, and Area 0.6%. Compared with the descriptive mean of the three existing-process tests, the improved variant increased Unf by approximately 5.25%, reduced SFI by 4.55%, reduced Cnt by 11.76%, and reduced Area by 18.18%, while UHML, Mic, Elg and Str remained close to the conventional values. The results support the technological principle that fine-impurity removal should be intensified through rational working-element geometry rather than excessive mechanical loading. The manuscript also defines the additional harvesting and replication metadata required before final international-journal submission.