Development of sustainable and ecological hybrid yarns: hemp fiber in denim fabric production

This study aims to develop and characterize more sustainable and ecological yarns as an alternative to 100% cotton intraditional denim fabric production by using hemp fiber. For this purpose, conventional ring, core-spun and dual corespun yarns were spun from three blend proportions of organic cotton/hemp fibers as 100:0, 80:20 and 70:30 inpercentages. Hemp and organic cotton were used as sheath fiber, and elastane type (Lycra and T400) – as core fiber inthe yarn structures. According to the results, the sheath fiber type and blend ratio greatly influenced all yarns’ physicalcharacteristics. Using hemp fiber in the yarn structure generally decreased the yarn properties, as expected. However,the best results by using hemp fiber in the yarn structures were achieved by using 20% hemp fiber in the sheath of theyarn structure. Further increasing this rate to 30% worsened the yarn properties considerably, regardless of the corecomponent. When the yarns were evaluated in terms of sustainability and performance, 80/20% organic cotton/hempblended yarns had the optimum yarn properties.