Calculating Dehairing Yield Mass Balance across High Guard Hair Batches
Calculate dehairing yield by converting raw mass to clean dry keratin weight, subtracting guard hair and dirt losses, and normalizing to 17% commercial regain.
Raw Fleece Scouring
Initial Processing
Industrial washing of greasy wool in a series of heated, alkaline baths removes sweat, dirt, and lanolin from the fiber before any carding or combing occurs. This cleaning process is raw fleece scouring, which transforms the dirty fleece into clean, spinable fiber suitable for textile production.
Wash Mechanics
Moving the greasy wool through a sequence of four to six washing bowls requires precise temperature and chemical control to prevent fiber felting. In a raw fleece scouring line, the wool is gently propelled through the bowls while a mixture of hot water, non-ionic detergents, and sodium carbonate dissolves the grease. The first bowls remove the bulk of the soil and sweat, while the subsequent bowls rinse the fiber with clean water.
Dryers then reduce the moisture content to the standard eighteen percent before the wool is baled.
Wastewater Treatment
Effluent generated by this washing process contains high levels of grease and suspended solids that must be treated before discharge. Recovering lanolin from the wash water during raw fleece scouring provides a valuable byproduct used in cosmetics, which offsets some of the chemical costs.
Fiber Yield
Scoured wool weight is measured against the original greasy weight to calculate the yield of the purchased batch. This yield calculation determines the economic feasibility of the raw material purchase.