An ASABE CSBE/ASABE Joint

Meeting Presentation

Paper Number: 141903382

Separation of Fibre and Shives from Decorticated Flax

Sandeep Thakur1 and Ying Chen1

1
Department of Biosystems Engineering, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, R3T 2N2
Written for presentation at the
2014 ASABE and CSBE/SCGAB Annual International Meeting
Sponsored by ASABE
Montreal, Quebec Canada
July 13 16, 2014
Abstract. Decorticated flax contains significant amount of shives. The separation of shives from the
fibre is essential in order to use the fibre in biomedical implants, automobile industry, bio-composites,
textiles, and many other applications. In this study, several methods such as ball milling (wet and
dry), carding, floatation method, pneumatic method, and a 4-machine sequence were used for
separation of flax fibre and shives. Preliminary testing of all these methods revealed the potential of
using the latter two for separation of fibre and shives. Machine sequence tests, involving Tumbler,
Picker, Sorter, and Carder, used two different decorticated flax fibres (Grade1 and Grade2). The
results showed that the Tumbler could remove some shives, but caused significant fibre losses; the
Picker and Sorter were able to partially separate shives from fibre, and maintain good machine
yields; and the Carder did not work because the fibre were too short for this equipment. Pneumatic
method was used to study the relationship of particle characteristics such as diameter, length, mass,
and projected area for 25 individual fibre and shive particles with respect to their terminal velocities.
The range of terminal velocities for shive and fibre particles were 1.13 to 4.09 m/s and 0.51 to 1.07
m/s, respectively, which were significantly different (p < 0.05). The mass and length for fibre
particles, and length and projected area for shives, did not influence terminal velocity. The increase
in mass and diameter for shives showed a reasonable increase in terminal velocity but due to highly
irregular shape and size of particles the trend was not linear. The significant differences in terminal
velocity between fibre and shives demonstrated the potential of the pneumatic method for the
separation of flax fibre and shives.

Keywords. Separation, flax, fibre, shive, yield, purity, pneumatic, terminal velocity, Picker

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Introduction
Natural fibres have been given more precedence in the recent years due to their eco-friendliness and no waste
production. Natural fibres such as flax fibre have been employed in various applications in industry sectors
such as automobiles, aerospace, construction, and in manufacturing composites. Flax fibre has been
implemented in the industry to overcome the necessity of synthetic fibres. Mechanical processing of flax plant
known as decortication includes extracting flax fibre feedstock by breaking the bond between the fibre (from the
stem) and the shives (inner woody part). Hammer mill is the most common type of decortication used in
industry due to its high efficiency but the end product (feedstock) contains a lot of shives. Pallesen (1996)
reported 41% fibre for the unretted flax fibre from combine-harvested crop and this percentage decreases with
the increase in degree of retting. Another study by Munder et al. (2004) tested a new decorticator based on the
hammer mill principle producing fibre yields for long fibre (20 to 160 mm) as 27% to 30% and for short fibre (<
20 mm) as 14.4%. These studies show that post-decortication cleaning of flax is necessary to increase fibre
purity.
Several pieces of equipment have been used for separation of fibre and shives in the past. Sieving or
screening is a traditional method to remove particles of any particular size. Fibre entangled within the shives is
the main challenge with screening equipment because the vibrations caused by the screener are not enough to
open up entanglements. Hence, the shives do not fall under the sieve. Therefore, screening or sieving is a
good method for removing free shives but it cannot eliminate shives entangled within fibres. Hence, it cannot
improve fibre purity.
Many alternate techniques/equipment like ball milling, carding, floatation method, pneumatic method, animal
fibre processing equipment, etc. have been implemented in industry for post-decortication cleaning. Ball mill
allows for controlling the grinding duration and rotational speed and is generally used for decortication of fibre
(Baker et al. 2010). A planetary ball mill was successfully used to improve fineness of hemp fibre bundles
(Khan et al. 2009). Other applications include grinding particles into particle form to perform further analyses
especially in the food industry. For example, coarse Koehne fruit powder was ground into micro-sizes to use as
ingredients in food and medicine (Zhang et al. 2009). Both wet and dry milling is used in industry. Wet milling
uses water to reduce the temperature and provides unimodal size distribution (Baheti et al. 2013). Both wet
and dry ball milling has not been investigated for flax fibre.
Carding is the most common method used for lint cleaning. It is a mechanical process in which the stripping
action between the teeth of the rollers causes the separation of fibre and shives. Carding parameters such as
licker-in speed increases the fibre openness and in turn the cleaning efficiency of the card (Gangwar 2009),
and the fibre elongation (Gktepe et al. 2003). However, high licker-in speeds result in reduction of fibre length,
fibre strength, and the overall cleanliness of the feedstock (Gktepe et al. 2003). There has been no research
done on carding of flax fibre.
Floatation method separates the particles using density differences between them. Floatation method is
successful if one of the particles is hydrophobic and the other one is hydrophilic (Guney et al. 2013). Flotation
method is being used for separating different varieties of plastics (Guney et al. 2013), separating polymer
resins and plastics (Wang et al. 2014), etc. Floatation method successfully separated hemp fibre and cores and
improved fibre purity from 55% to 90% (Parvin et al. 2013). However, this method has not been implemented
for separating flax fibre and shives.
Pneumatic method is another technique which is prominently used in agricultural and food sciences industry.
This method uses airflow to separate different particles based on the differences in terminal velocities (Afonso
Jnior et al. 2007; Gupta et al. 2006; Klkan & Gner, 2006). Designing of well functioning air conveying and
separation equipment depends on the terminal velocity (Gupta et al. 2006). Terminal velocity differences have
been used in various applications such as; separation of coffee cherries and beans which is useful for
improving coffee production (Afonso Jnior, 2007), separation of shell and kernel particles of walnuts (Nahal et
al. 2013), etc. However, this method failed to separate a mixture of hemp fibre and cores (Parvin et al. 2013).
There is no literature for the implementation of pneumatic method for separation of flax fibre and shives.
Animal fibre processing equipment such as Tumbler, Picker, Sorter/Dehairer, and Carder have been used to
process animal fibres for many decades. These pieces of equipment have recently been used to clean flax
fibre for the development of bio-composites (Panigrahi et al. 2012). The machine sequence of the
aforementioned equipment is essential for selection of good quality fibre while removing shives. The initial
mass retention post processing using a single sequence of Tumbler, Picker, De-hairer, and Carder for 1-X
partially retted flax fibre was 67.8%, 59.8%, 20.2%, and 12.9%. The percentages are higher for the first three
equipment and lower for the Carder for 3-X partially retted flax fibre for the same machine sequence. Using 3
machine sequences of Tumbler and Picker and then using De-hairer and Carder, the initial percentages for the

2014 ASABE CSBE/SCGAB Annual International Meeting Paper Page 1

equipment were not significantly different. Unretted flax fibres have not been processed using these pieces of
equipment.
Decorticated flax feedstock has a low fibre purity and hence post-decortication cleaning of flax feedstock is
essential to improve the fibre purity and meet the growing demand of the industry. One of the great challenges
of this study is the entanglement of fibres with the shives. Traditional methods have been unsuccessful and
hence an investigation using other methods such as floatation method, carding, pneumatic method, and 4-
machine sequence was carried out to find a better alternative. The main objective of this study was to separate
shives from decorticated flax to obtain fibre with higher purity. The specific objectives were: (1) to investigate
the fibre purity and yield resulting from a series of machines (Tumbler, Picker, Sorter, and Carder) for two
different feedstocks of decorticated flax, and (2) to measure the terminal velocities of various flax fibre bundles
and shive particles.

Materials and Methods

Materials
The two flax fibre samples (Grade1 and Grade2) were obtained from a hammer mill decortication facility. Both
the samples comprised of fibre bundles, single fibres, fibres bound to shives, loose shive particles, etc. Dust,
long shives, and short fibres were more prominent in Grade2 samples (Fig. 1) whereas Grade1 comprised of
longer fibres and lesser shives.

Figure 1. Flax fibre sample.

Preliminary Tests
Preliminary tests were conducted using ball milling, carding, and floatation methods to explore the potential of
these methods for separation of fibre and shives. A lab-scale planetary ball mill (Model Pulverisette 6, Fritsch,
Idar-Oberstein, Germany) was used to ground shives and sieve out the flax fibre. Working principle and
description of equipment has been described by Baker et al. (2010).
Dry milling tests with rotational speed of 200, 250, and 300 rpm at 3 minutes each and 350 and 400 rpm at 6
minutes each were performed with a sample size of 3.15 g. Five wet milling samples were prepared by keeping
them in aluminum containers filled with water overnight. These samples weighing 3.15 g were drained out of
the aluminum cans using a strainer until all the free water was removed. The samples were wet milled at 400
rpm for 6 minutes. The wet samples were left to air dry for 24 hours and the remaining samples were milled for
300 and 350 rpm for 3 and 6 minutes each.
All the dry milling tests showed no visible separation between shive and fibre particles. With increasing speed
and grinding duration more small fibre and fine particulates were present after the milling. The
inconclusiveness of dry milling asserted towards using the flax feedstock for wet milling.
The end product for wet milling test at 400 rpm and 6 min was a mushy paste and the fibre and shives were still
intact. Milling the wet samples after air drying still produced a soft paste with the fibre intact with the shives.
This preliminary testing concluded that ball mill (both wet and dry) is inefficient for separation of flax fibre and
shives.
Description of methodology and equipment of flotation and carding methods have been described in Parvin et
al. (2013). Five random samples weighing 3.15 g were placed in an aluminum container filled with water. Each
sample was agitated with a bamboo skewer and left overnight. No density differences were seen for any of the
replicates. In all the tests, a few free shives were floating on the surface but the entire sample sunk to the
bottom. This was due to the entanglement of fibres with the shives which dragged the fibre-bound-to-shives to

2014 ASABE CSBE/SCGAB Annual International Meeting Paper Page 2

the bottom. Therefore, the floatation method was ineffective in separating flax fibre and shives.
For carding, the Grade1 feedstock, weighing 38.1 g was uniformly laid out on the feeding tray, underwent
multiple rounds of carding until it was visually made sure that there were no more shives falling underneath the
two rollers. The carding was stopped if there was more fibre loss than the elimination of shives. The final
product after carding was retrieved from the main cylinder using a wooden stick. The waste from carding
weighed 11.6 g and was further sieved using the Horizontal Sieve Shaker (AS 400, Retsch) to retrieve more
fibre from sieving. Carding improved the purity from 51% to 60% but it does not meet our objectives. Post-
sieving only retrieved short fibres and fines which did not improve the fibre purity.
The preliminary trials for ball milling, carding, and floatation method demonstrated that these methods were
ineffective in separating flax fibre and shives. Therefore, no further testing was conducted using these
methods. Successful preliminary tests resulted in further testing for the pneumatic method and the 4-machine
sequence.
Machine Sequence Tests
Description of Equipment
Tumbler
The Tumbler (Belfast Mini Mills, PEI, Canada) is 4 feet in diameter, with 1 screen mesh covering it (Fig.
2a). The wire diameter of the mesh is 0.062. It tumbles the feedstock at 28 rpm and results in elimination of
dirt, dust, vegetation, shorts, and guard hair.

a b

Figure 2. (a) Tumbler, (b) Picker.

Picker
The Picker/Opener (Belfast Mini Mills, PEI, Canada) has a 102" long conveyor belt (Fig. 2b) where the fibre
samples are placed uniformly along the length. The fibre passes through two rollers: the first slow rotating
licker-in and next the fast rotating big drum (530 rpm). The big drum has coarser teeth (1" to 1.5" long). The
Opener throws the fibre in the conditioning room located at the end of the machine whereas the shives are
stuck to the two rollers. The main function of the Opener assembly is to tease out entanglements and open up
the fibre lumps to assist in further analyses. The Picker accomplishes two tasks of opening and blending.
Opening involves the rapidly teasing out of the fibres due to the air movement caused by the speed difference
between the fast rotating drum and slow licker-in feeding rollers.
Sorter
The Sorter/Dehairer (Belfast Mini Mills, PEI, Canada) comprises of a set of three cylinders: licker-in (rotating at
340 rpm), swift (rotating at 470 rpm), and the doffer (rotating at 5.5 rpm). In addition, there are two rollers
connected to the vibratory conveyor (117" long and 48" wide) which intakes the feedstock into the machine

2014 ASABE CSBE/SCGAB Annual International Meeting Paper Page 3

assembly (Figure 3a). The Sorter gently separates unwanted contaminated particles and also separates long
fibres and short fibres. The first two small rollers with metal teeth aligns the fibre as it is taken from the
conveyor belt. Then the fibre passes through the set of three cylinders. Long fibres are combed off from the
doffer and fall into a collecting bin while the shives and short fibres are collected in chamber underneath the
two smaller rollers and the licker-in cylinder.

a b
Figure 3. (a) Sorter and (b) Carder.

Carder
The Carder (Belfast Mini Mills, PEI, Canada) contains a series of 14 cylinders and a 138" long and 38" wide
vibratory conveyor (Figure 3b) to produce a premium quality fibre. The Carder usually intakes a big input feed
because it is used to make batts or rovings and yarns. It performs three functions: separation of individual
fibres from each other, aligning the fibres, and providing a continuous web of fibres at the end. The Carder also
removes dust, neps (tight balls of fibre, usually less than 1/2"), and other left over contamination using a
vacuum system. It discharges the lower quality fibre and shives after passing the licker-in cylinder.
Experimental Design
The treatments were two types of flax fibres: Grade1 and Grade2 with three replications. Tests were
undertaken with a particular machine sequence (Fig. 4) for each treatment. Picker was excluded from the
machine sequence of Grade2 treatment because a lot of fibre was lost in the initial step of tumbling. Using the
Picker in this case would have resulted in more fibre loss. The fibre output of the machine was used as the
initial feed for the next machine in sequence. For Grade1 treatment, there were a total of 4 machine sequences
X 1 (same) feeding mass X 3 replications = 12 experiments. For Grade2 treatment, there were a total of 3
machine sequences X 1 (same) feeding mass X 3 replications = 9 experiments.

Figure 4. Machine sequence for (a) Grade1 and (b) Grade2 Fibre.

Experimental Procedure
A sample of known mass was placed in the Tumbler and it was allowed to tumble for 75 seconds. This time
duration was determined based on preliminary testing and was deemed appropriate to get rid of the shives.
Running the tumbler for more duration resulted in excessive fibre losses. The output left inside the Tumbler
after its run was transferred to the Picker. The output from the Picker was forwarded to the Sorter. And, finally,
the fibre output from all three trials of the Grade1 batch was fed into the Carder. This was done because
2014 ASABE CSBE/SCGAB Annual International Meeting Paper Page 4
Carder requires a bigger input feed than the other equipment. For Picker, Sorter, and Carder, the feed was
uniformly laid out by hand (Fig. 3b) on their respective conveyor belts so that a continuous and uniform input
was received by the licker-in rollers on each machine. Uniformity of the input feed is important so that there is
very less fibre stuck on rollers and hence, fibre loss is less. After each machine was used, a sample from the
output and the shives or small fibres retrieved were weighed, bagged, and labeled for purity calculation. The
rollers on the Picker were cleaned out after each of the three trials. Same procedure was carried out for the
Grade2 batch.
Measurement
Fibre Purity
Five gram samples were manually sorted for each of the replicates to determine the fibre present in the
Tumbler waste, Sorter waste, and Sorter output. Samples collected during testing were laid out uniformly on a
white sheet of paper. To remove bias and procure a representative batch, a sub-sample was retrieved from
various locations of the sample and then mixed thoroughly. This sub-sample was again laid out in a different
white sheet of paper and sub-sub-samples were procured. This process was continued until 5 g of sample was
obtained for purity calculation. Next the 5 g samples were manually sorted into fibre and shives. The purity of
the sample was defined as the ratio of mass of fibre to the total mass of the sample.
mf
P (2)
mT
where P = fibre purity
m f = mass of fibre

mT = total mass of the sample

Machine Yield
The yield of all the four equipment used in the sequence mentioned in Fig. 4 was determined by ratio of the
mass of the output of any particular machine to the initial mass of the sample.
mO
Ym (1)
mT
where Ym = machine yield
mO = mass of end product post-processing
mT = original mass of the sample pre-processing

Pneumatic Experiment
Sample Preparation
Fibre samples shown in Fig. 1 were sieved using Horizontal Sieve Shaker (AS 400, Retsch) for 2 minutes at
275 rpm to remove chaff (dust, fines, and shive particles). The speed and duration of sieving was obtained
based on a series of preliminary trials. The sample material which fell through the sieve size of 0.74 m was
discarded and the rest of the material was used for further tests. To obtain pure fibre and shives, five random
samples from the Grade2 treatment were sorted out manually into two categories: fibre and shives (Fig. 6).
Twenty five shive and fibre particles were randomly selected from the 5 replicates for determining terminal
velocity.

2014 ASABE CSBE/SCGAB Annual International Meeting Paper Page 5

 a b
Figure 6. Fibre Purity Testing: (a) Fibre and (b) Shives.

Description of Equipment
The same apparatus used by Parvin et al. (2013) for separation of hemp fibre and shives was used for the
separation of shives from flax fibre. The apparatus consists of a wind tunnel which contains an air blower
(Fasco Distributing Co., Type U85, Cassville, MO) which is connected to the variable transformer (General
Electric volt-pac 9T92A86, USA), a transparent vertical tube 910 mm high and 139 mm in diameter, a 19 mm
thick honey comb plastic flow straightener with a round opening size of 3 mm, a strainer size mesh screen, and
a supporting wooden frame (Fig. 7). Air blower provides vertical airflow upwards from the bottom of the hole
present in the wooden frame. A dial on the variable transformer allows for changing the voltage of the air
blower during the test. The transparent tube helps to observe the pneumatic behavior of the particles. A few
mesh screen sizes of 8 mm, a 1/4" x 1/8" aluminum wire mesh, and strainer size were tried. Strainer size mesh
was used for the experiments to test a wide range of particles. The smaller particles tested were falling through
the other mesh sizes. The flow straightener provides uniform air flow to the sample or particle placed on the
wire mesh screen.

Figure 7. Apparatus for pneumatic method.

Calibration of Air Velocity

The air blower attached to the apparatus was supplying air at different voltages as adjusted through the
variable transformer. In order to obtain terminal velocity in relation to the applied voltage, a simple calibration
experiment was performed using an anemometer (Bacharach-florite 800, PA). Preliminary tests of single fibre
and single shive showed that the air flow in the range from 25 to 70 V for this particular air blower is sufficient
2014 ASABE CSBE/SCGAB Annual International Meeting Paper Page 6
such that the sample has enough air flow for separation of flax fibre and shives.
The air velocity was measured at the top of the transparent tube (910mm long) and at the center of 139 mm
diameter wind tunnel using an anemometer between the range of 25 to 70 V at 5 V intervals. The relationship
between input velocity and air velocity (Fig. 8) can be represented by a exponential regression line with a high
correlation value of 0.97.

7
6

TerminalVelocity(m/s) 5 y=0.162e0.0521x
R=0.9711
4
3
2
1
0
0 20 40 60 80
Voltage(V)

Figure 8. Calibration of air velocity with the input voltage of the blower.

The uniformity of air blower across the diameter of the transparent tube was also tested using the same
anemometer. This test was performed at 5 locations each side and around the center at a 10 mm interval,
giving 11 readings in total. The readings were taken at 40 and 45 V. The results (Fig. 9) show that the velocity
was uniform along the diameter of the transparent tube where the sample was placed during the pneumatic
experiment. These results show that the flow straightener provides uniform air flow.

5
4.5
4 40V
45V
AirVelocity(m/s)

3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
60 40 20 0 20 40 60
PositionofAnemometer(mm)

Figure 9. Air velocity distribution across the diameter of the wind tunnel.

Experimental Design
This experiment included two treatments: individual fibre and shive particles. The terminal velocity for 25
particles for each treatment was determined. Each test was performed three times. Therefore, a total of 25 fibre
particles X 3 + 25 shive particles X 3 = 150 tests were performed.
Experimental Procedure
For investigating the aerodynamic properties of individual flax fibre and shives, 25 individual fibre and shive
particles were randomly picked up from the manually sorted batches of fibre (Fig. 6a) and shive (Fig. 6b). A
particle was placed on the wire mesh screen and the air velocity was slowly increased. The velocity at which
2014 ASABE CSBE/SCGAB Annual International Meeting Paper Page 7
the particle left the wire mesh surface was recorded as the terminal velocity.
Measurement
Particle Characteristics
Particle characteristics such as length, diameter, and mass were measured for each of the 25 shive particles.
The length and diameter were measured using a digital vernier calliper whereas the mass was measured using
a measuring scale (Cole-Parmer Symmetry, PA). The projected area of the shives was determined based on
length and diameter measurements. The diameter of fibre particles was neglected because of very little
variation. The length of fibre particles was measured using digital vernier calliper. Since, the fibre particles were
too light (< 10-5 m) therefore, linear density (total mass of 25 particles divided by sum of lengths of all the
particles) was used in determining the mass. There was very little variation in the projected area of fibre
particles, therefore, it was also neglected.
Terminal Velocity
The velocity at which the particle was about to leave the wire mesh screen surface was recorded as the
terminal velocity of the particle. This measurement was taken three times for both fibre and shive particles.
Statistical Analysis
Statistical Analysis Software (SAS) version 9.3 was used to carry out Analysis of variance (ANOVA) to
compare the terminal velocity differences in pneumatic method. Scheffe's method was used to compare the
treatment means for machine sequence results. The level of significance was chosen as 5%.

Results and Discussion

Machine Sequence Tests
Fibre Purity
Figure 10 shows the average purity for fibre retrieved from Tumbler waste, Sorter waste, and Sorter output for
Grade1 and Grade2 treatments. The error bars indicate the range of purity values for all the three replicates.
The average fibre purity for each category for Grade1 is significantly greater than Grade2 (Scheffe's method).
The high percentage of fibre in the Sorter waste shows the presence of a lot of small fibre in the feedstock.
This was expected because of the presence of high proportion of small fibre in the initial samples. The average
fibre purity from the Sorter output for Grade1 and Grade2 was 79.1% and 66.1%, respectively. Therefore, for
Grade1 fibre, Sorter increased the purity from 51% to 79.1% which is close to our target of 80%. The Tumbler
waste removed a lot of shives but there were excessive fibre losses too. For instance, for Grade1 treatment,
the Tumbler removed 74.2% shives (also removing 25.8% fibre). These results prove that Tumbler removes
shives but it also results in excessive fibre losses and the Sorter only works for the samples containing long
fibres.

90
a
80 b Grade1
70 Grade2
FibrePurity(%)

60 a
50
40
b a
30
20 b
10
0
Sorterwaste Sorteroutput Tumblerwaste
Category

Figure 10. Fibre Purity Tests

(significant differences between each category were marked by different small letters).

2014 ASABE CSBE/SCGAB Annual International Meeting Paper Page 8

Machine Yield
Figure 11 shows the machine yield for the 4 pieces of equipment for Grade1 and Grade2. The average
machine yield for each equipment for Grade1 is significantly greater than Grade2 (Scheffe's method). The error
bars represent the range of 3 replicates for both the treatments. High machine yields for Tumbler and Picker for
Grade1 shows that these equipment can be implemented for flax fibre processing. However, Tumbler yield for
Grade2 is much lower because of the presence of excessive amount of shives, dust, and tow which fell through
the 1" screen size of the Tumbler. Lower yield of Tumbler for Grade2 was the reason for not passing this
sample through the Picker to avoid more sample loss. Sorter and Carder yields were significantly lower than
Tumbler and Picker because of the presence of short fibre in the feedstock. This is shown by the high fibre
purity of Sorter waste in both Grade1 and Grade2 (Fig. 10). Existence of short fibres and fines in the feedstock
overloaded the carding wires on the rollers. Carding action did not take place entirely which resulted in fibre
accumulation between the first few rollers instead of going through the entire cycle. This entails that the
stripping action did not take place due to the fibre being too small in size and potentially due to the wider gap
between the main cylinder and worker, and the stripper pair rollers.
The losses for each of the machines include the shive or small fibre particles which fell through the conveyor
belts while uniformly laying them as feed for each machine. The vibratory conveyor also removes some of the
free shives. Some fibre and shives got stuck on the rollers and drum cylinders used in each machine, and other
losses were due to flying of the small particulates in case of Tumbler. Although unretted flax feedstock was
used for these pieces of equipment, the results for passing the feedstock through one 4-machine sequence are
comparable for Grade1 with a study conducted by Panigrahi et al (2012) which used retted fibre.

100
90 Grade1
a
80 Grade2
Machineyield(%)

70
60
50
40 b
30
a
20 b a
10 b
0
Tumbler Picker Sorter Carder
Equipment

Figure 11. Machine Yield Results

(significant differences between each equipment were marked by different small letters)

Pneumatic Experiment
Particle Characteristics
The length of the fibre particles ranged from 17.4 to 100.5 mm whereas shive particles ranged from 7.6 to 35.2
mm. The diameter of fibre particles was not measured because all the particles had very little differences
between them. The diameter of shive particles ranged from 0.32 to 3.07 mm. The projected area of fibres was
not determined because the projection of fibre particles onto the wire mesh screen was very small. The
projected area for shives ranged from 17.2 to 73.7 mm2. The wide range of measurements for both fibre and
shives shows the random selection of both shives and fibre and represents the trueness of the hammer mill
decorticated feedstock.
Relationship of Terminal Velocity with Shives' Particle Characteristics
The relationship of terminal velocity with the particle characteristics such as diameter, length, projected area,
and mass for shive particles is as follows:
Diameter
Diameter of shive particles ranging from 0.32 to 3.07 mm showed terminal velocity ranging from 1.13 to 4.09

2014 ASABE CSBE/SCGAB Annual International Meeting Paper Page 9

m/s. There is a high range and variance of terminal velocity values due to the variety of randomly chosen
shives within the sample which reflects the true nature of particles existing in the batch. The shives in the
sample varied a lot and could have been categorized into solid, broken with one/both edges, sliced, fibres-
bound-to-shive, and other irregular shapes. With an increase in diameter of shive particles, there is a general
increase in terminal velocity (Fig. 12). However, this trend does not apply to all the shive particles.
5
4.5
4
TerminalVelocity(m/s)
R=0.4835
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
Diameter(mm)

Figure 12. Shives - Diameter versus Terminal Velocity.

Length
The plot of length versus terminal velocity (Fig. 13) for shives shows that length does not play any role in
determining the trend of terminal velocity.

5
4.5
4
TerminalVelocity(m/s)

R=0.0301
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Length(mm)

Figure 13. Shives - Length versus Terminal Velocity.

Projected Area
The plot (Fig. 14) shows a horizontal linear trend line showing very little change in terminal velocity with respect
to the projected area. The projected area was approximated based on the circumference of the particle
assuming the particle had symmetrical cylindrical geometry and a flat rectangular projection. But, due to the
irregularity of size and variability of the particles there is no particular trend.

2014 ASABE CSBE/SCGAB Annual International Meeting Paper Page 10

 5
4.5
4 R=0.0006

TerminalVelocity(m/s)
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
ProjectedArea(mm2)

Figure 14. Shives - Projected Area versus Terminal Velocity.

Mass
The mass of shive particles ranged from 1.9 to 81.0 mg. With the increase in the mass of shive particles there
is an increase in terminal velocity (Fig. 15). Irregularity of the particles in the batch allowed for a wide range of
values for low weighing shives.

5
4.5
TerminalVelocity(m/s)

4
R=0.6773
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08
Weight(g)

Figure 15. Shives - Mass versus Terminal Velocity.

Relationship of Terminal Velocity with Fibres' Particle Characteristics

Length
There is no trend in terminal velocity when the fibre length increases (Fig. 16). The terminal velocity remains
constant along the entire range of length of fibre particles tested for this experiment.

2014 ASABE CSBE/SCGAB Annual International Meeting Paper Page 11

 5
4.5

TerminalVelocity(m/s)
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
0 20 40 60 80 100
Length(mm)

Figure 16. Fibre - Length versus Terminal Velocity.

Mass
There is no general trend in terminal velocity when the fibre mass increases (Fig. 17). The terminal velocity
stays almost constant within the entire range of the mass of fibre particles.

5
4.5
TerminalVelocity(m/s)

4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
0 0.0002 0.0004 0.0006 0.0008 0.001 0.0012
Weight(g)

Figure 17. Fibre - Mass versus Terminal Velocity.

Comparison of Fibre and Shives' Particle Characteristics

Length
Figures 13 and 16 shows the trend of terminal velocities for fibre and shive with respect to the length of the
particles. There is no significant change in terminal velocity with the increase in length of both fibre and shive
particles. However, the terminal velocity range is different for the two particles. ANOVA results prove that
terminal velocity for fibre and shive particles is significantly different (p < 0.05). The differences in the terminal
velocities of both particles proves that pneumatic method can be used to separate them.
Mass
The mass of fibre and shive particles ranged from 0.18 to 1.03 mg and 1.9 to 81.0 mg, respectively. Fibre
particles are lighter than the shives as expected and hence, their terminal velocities are lower than the shive
particles. Figures 15 and 17 shows the trend of terminal velocities for fibre and shives with respect to the mass
of the particles. Mass of shives increases with the terminal velocity whereas the increase in mass of fibre
particles does not change the terminal velocity. These differences in the mass of fibre and shives proves that
the terminal velocities can be used to separate them.

2014 ASABE CSBE/SCGAB Annual International Meeting Paper Page 12

Conclusion
Decorticated flax contains a lot of shives which entangle fibres. To improve the fibre purity, an investigation on
processing of decorticated flax was carried out using a ball mill, lab scale carder, floatation method, pneumatic
method, and 4-machine processing sequence. The preliminary trials for all the aforementioned
methods/equipment proved the potential of the latter two in separation of flax fibre and shives. Results of
pneumatic method revealed that the shive and fibre particles have significantly different terminal velocities in
relation to mass and length. High yield of Picker (96.4%) and its function to open the fibre entanglements
proved to be the most successful equipment of the 4-machine sequence. Sorter and Carder yields were very
low because the short fibre in the feedstock could not go through the entire cycle of cylinders in both
equipment. These tests show the prospect of using pneumatic method for separation of flax fibre and shives.

Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the financial support of Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
(NSERC) Engage program. We also thank SWM International for providing flax fibre samples and Louis Roth
for his assistance with the 4-machine sequence tests. The authors also appreciate the helping hands of
Mohammad A. Sadek, Mukta R. Nandanwar, and Steven Murray in fibre purity tests.

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