Examining use of a cylinder cleaner to facilitate plastic removal in a cotton gin

Abstract. US produced cotton is among the cleanest available in the world. However, in more recent years low, but increasing, levels of sheet plastic contamination has been detected in US cotton. Normal cotton cleaning equipment has been shown to fail to remove significant portions of the plastic which enters the gin. Therefore, this study was initiated to determine if adjustments to the normal operation of existing gin machines would result in greater removal of plastic pieces. A research-scale cylinder cleaner was operated with different levels of air flow, seed cotton processing rate, cylinder rotation speed, size of plastic pieces and two cotton cultivars. Plastic removal rates and lint losses were measured. The data for the lint losses has not been completely analyzed at this time. The seed cotton processing rate and cotton cultivar did not significantly affect the plastic removal rate. Increasing the air flow rate, decreasing the cylinder speed, and decreasing the size of the plastic pieces resulted in increased plastic removal from the seed cotton. An equation was developed to predict the plastic removal rate given the air flow rate, cylinder rotation speed, and plastic size.