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Why are cotton, flax, and jute called cellulose-based fibres?
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An annotated diagram showing how an operator uses a hand wheel, rollers, and spindles on a spinning jenny to draw and twist unspun fiber into thread.
Cotton, flax, and jute are classified as cellulose-based fibers because cellulose is their primary chemical component.1
Cellulose is a complex carbohydrate that serves as the fundamental structural material in plant cell walls. While these fibers also contain varying amounts of other substancesāsuch as hemicellulose, lignin, pectins, and waxesātheir physical and chemical identity is defined by their high cellulose content.12
In the context of textile materials, these fibers are categorized as vegetable fibers because they originate from plants: cotton as a seed hair, and flax and jute as bast fibres found within the stems of plants.1