Cotton Ginning Facilities

MAC developed a short staple cotton ginning facility capable of processing small samples utilizing commercial gin specifications. The operation of this facility could be adapted to be GLP compliant. It is capable of drying seed cotton, and separating it into lint, seed, trash and lint trash.

The cotton ginning facility is designed to feed small samples into an eight-cylinder incline cleaner. This incline cleaner has a series of spiked drums that rotate opposite to each other causing small sticks and leaves to fall through the racks. The majority of the cotton trash is removed by this cleaner. The cotton continues onto the stick machine which uses channel saws to remove the burrs and hulls along with large sticks. Additional cleaning and fluffing occurs when the samples arrive at the six-cylinder incline cleaner. The cotton from the six-cylinder incline cleaner is fed into a variable speed Mitchell feeder and cleaner. All trash from the stick machine, incline cleaners and Mitchell cleaner is collected by the cyclone trash collectors.

The variable speed Mitchell feeder and cleaner allow the operator to control the amount of cotton fed to the 25-saw gin. The lint is grabbed by the saw teeth and pulled between the ribs which separates the lint from the seed. The lint is pulled to the lint cleaner which knocks off the motes and neps (including pin trash). This lint trash is also collected by the cyclone collectors. The cleaned lint is pushed onto the bale press where it is collected.

All components of the ginning operation (seed, lint, trash and lint trash) can be weighed for mass balance verification. Previously processed samples have showed an average recovery of 99.2%. These results can vary depending on the amount of moisture and dust in the seed cotton.

Air blast nozzles have been installed to facilitate cleaning between samples and to reduce contamination. Plexiglas windows have been installed to aid in the visual inspection and cleaning operation.

It may be necessary to dry cotton samples if the moisture content exceeds 8%. If drying is required, the samples are placed in specially designed containers and warm dry air (25 degrees C to 50 degrees C) is passed through prior to ginning.

The Maricopa Agricultural Center accepts seed cotton samples for the current ginning season. Ginning costs will vary depending on sample size, number of samples and protocol requirements. The ginning facility is available for inspection on request. Sample shipments can be easily accomplished by ACDS or FEDEX.

• Facilities uses standard commercial cleaning devices:
  • 8-cylinder incline cleaner
  • Stick and burr machine
  • 6-cylinder incline cleaner
  • Mitchell cleaner and feeder
  • Lint cleaner
• Air blast nozzles for cleaning
• Plexiglas windows for visual inspection
• High efficient 25-saw gin
• Seed Cotton is separated into seed, lint, trash and lint trash
• Mass balance can be made on each sample ginned and typically exceeds 99% recovery. Results may vary due to the amount of moisture and dust in the seed cotton.
• Capable of ginning seed cotton which has been either hand-picked, machine picked or machine stripped
• Dryer available to reduce cotton seed moisture to 6.5-8% moisture using warm air temperatures