How is natural silk made? Natural silk - types of fabric, care and history. Silkworms and cosmetics

Silk caterpillar in 30 days increases in weight by 10 thousand times

People know a lot about the merits of silk, but few people are familiar with the "creator" who gave the world this miracle. Meet the silkworm. For 5,000 years, this small, humble insect has been spinning silk thread.

Silkworms eat the leaves of mulberry (mulberry) trees. Hence the name silkworm.

These are very voracious creatures, they can eat for days without a break. That is why hectares of mulberry trees are specially planted for them.

Like any butterfly, the silkworm goes through four life stages.

Larva.
Caterpillar.
A chrysalis in a silk cocoon.
Butterfly.

Extremely interesting breeding history such an insect as the silkworm.

The technology was developed a long time ago, in ancient China. The first mention of this production in Chinese chronicles dates back to 2600 BC, and silkworm cocoons found by archaeologists date back to 2000 BC. e. The Chinese elevated silk making to the status of a state secret, and for many centuries this was the country's clear priority.

The ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius retells the legend of how man first learned about the silk thread. Empress Xi-Ling-shi found a cocoon under a mulberry bush and mistook it for some wondrous fruit. But he accidentally fell out of her hands into a cup of tea. Trying to get it, the empress pulled out a silk thread. In gratitude for this accidental discovery, the Chinese elevated Xi-Ling-shi to the rank of a deity of the Celestial Empire. At first, only empresses and women from among their entourage were engaged in the production of silk.

The Chinese knew how to keep their secrets - any attempt to take out butterflies, caterpillars or silkworm eggs was punishable by death. But all secrets are revealed someday. This happened with the production of silk. First, some selfless Chinese princess in v. BC, having married the king of small Bukhara, she brought him a gift of silkworm eggs, hiding them in her hair. About 200 years later, in 552, two monks came to the emperor of Byzantium, Justinian, who offered to deliver silkworm eggs from distant China for a good reward. Justinian agreed. The monks went on a journey and returned the same year, bringing silkworm eggs in their hollow staffs. Justinian was fully aware of the importance of his purchase and ordered silkworms to be bred in the eastern regions of the empire by special decree. However, sericulture soon fell into decline and only after the Arab conquests flourished again in Asia Minor, and later in North Africa, in Spain. Much later, in the 13th century, Italy, the countries of North Africa, and in the 16th century Russia began to breed such worms and produce silk fabric.

The "Great Silk Road" - a caravan road that in ancient times connected the West with the East and stretched through the mountains of Central and Central Asia - served the development of geography as a science and trade between ancient countries.

In the 20th century, silk had a serious rival - artificial and then synthetic chemical fibers. Many of them are stronger than silk, less wrinkled, more resistant to abrasion, but a person feels better in clothes made from natural silk.

Butterfly with big wings

What kind of insect is the silkworm?

The silkworm is not found in the wild today and is bred in special factories to obtain a natural thread. An adult is a rather large insect - a light-colored butterfly, reaching 6 cm in length with a wingspan of up to 5-6 cm. Breeders from many countries are engaged in breeding various breeds of this interesting butterfly. After all, optimal adaptation to the characteristics of various localities is the basis for profitable production and maximum income. The silkworm cannot live without human care, it is not able to survive in the wild. The silkworm caterpillar is not able to get food on its own, even if it is very hungry, it is the only Butterfly that cannot fly, which means that it is not capable of finishing food on its own.

Many silkworm breeds have been bred: monovoltine - they give one generation a year, polyvoltine - two, and there are species that give several broods a year. Despite its size, the silkworm butterfly does not fly, as it has long lost this ability. She lives only 12 days and during this time she does not even eat, having an undeveloped oral cavity.

Butterfly and ... Butterfly again

With the onset of the mating season, silkworm breeders place pairs of butterflies in separate bags. After mating, the female spends 3-4 days laying eggs in the amount of 300-800 pieces per grain, which has an oval shape with significantly varying sizes, which are directly dependent on the breed of the insect. The period of removal of the worm also depends on the species - it can be in the same year, or maybe in the next.

Caterpillar- the next stage in the development of the silkworm cocoon. The silkworm caterpillar hatches from eggs at a temperature of 23-25 °C. In the factory, this happens in incubators at a certain humidity and temperature. The eggs develop within 8-10 days, then a brown small up to 3 mm long silkworm larva, pubescent with hairs, appears from the grena. Small caterpillars are placed in special trays and transferred to a well-ventilated warm room. These containers are a structure like a bookcase, consisting of several shelves, covered with a net and having a specific purpose - here the caterpillars constantly eat. They feed exclusively on fresh mulberry leaves, and the proverb “appetite comes with eating” is absolutely accurate for determining the voracity of caterpillars. Their need for food grows exponentially, already on the second day they eat twice as much food as on the first. A silkworm in 30 days increases in weight by 10,000 times.

Molt. By the fifth day of life, the larva stops, freezes and begins to wait for its first molt. When the color of the head of the caterpillar darkens, it means that the molt has begun. She sleeps for about a day, clasping her legs around a leaf, then, with a sharp straightening, the skin bursts, releasing the caterpillar and giving it the opportunity to rest and again take up satisfying hunger. For the next four days, she absorbs the leaves with an enviable appetite, until the next molt comes.

caterpillar transformations For the entire period of development (about a month), the caterpillar molts four times. The last molt turns it into a rather large individual of a magnificent light pearl shade: the body length reaches 8 cm, the width is up to 1 cm, and the weight is 3-5 g with dense skin. A large head stands out on the body with two pairs of well-developed jaws, especially the upper ones, called "mandibles". But the most important quality that is important for the production of silk is the presence in an adult caterpillar of a tubercle under the lip, from which a special substance oozes, which hardens on contact with air and turns into a silk thread.

Formation of silk thread. This tubercle ends with two silk glands, which are long tubes with a middle part turned into a kind of reservoir in the body of the caterpillar, accumulating a sticky substance, which subsequently forms a silk thread. If necessary, the caterpillar releases a trickle of liquid through the hole under the lower lip, which solidifies and turns into a thin, but strong enough thread. The latter plays a big role in the life of an insect and is used, as a rule, as a safety rope, since at the slightest danger it hangs on it like a spider, not being afraid to fall. In an adult caterpillar, silk glands occupy 2/5 of the entire body weight.

Stages of building a cocoon. Having reached adulthood after the 4th molt, the caterpillar begins to lose its appetite and gradually stops eating. The silk secreting glands by this time are filled with liquid so that a long thread constantly stretches behind the larva. This means that the caterpillar is ready to pupate. She begins to look for a suitable place and finds it on cocoon rods, promptly placed by silkworm breeders along the side walls of the stern "shelves".

Having settled on a twig, the caterpillar begins to work intensively: it alternately turns its head, applying a tubercle with a hole for the silk gland to different places on the cocoon, thereby forming a very strong network of silk thread. It turns out a kind of frame for future construction. Then the caterpillar crawls to the center of its frame, holding itself in the air by means of threads, and begins to spin the actual cocoon.

Cocoon and pupation. Silkworm caterpillars use a continuous silk thread, the length of which is 300-900 meters, to curl their cocoons; there were also large cocoons that were “wound” from 1500 meters of threads. When building a cocoon, the caterpillar turns its head very quickly, releasing up to 3 cm of thread on each turn. Its length to create the entire cocoon is from 0.8 to 1.5 km, and the time spent on it takes four or more days. Having finished work, the caterpillar falls asleep in a cocoon, turning into a chrysalis. The weight of the cocoon together with the chrysalis does not exceed 3-4 g. Silkworm cocoons are very diverse in size (from 1 to 6 cm), shape (round, oval, with bridges) and color (from snow-white to golden and purple). Experts have noticed that male silkworms are more diligent in terms of cocoon weaving. Their pupal dwellings are distinguished by the density of the winding of the thread and its length.

And again a butterfly. After three weeks, a butterfly emerges from the chrysalis, which needs to get out of the cocoon. This is difficult, since it is completely devoid of jaws that adorn the caterpillar. But wise nature solved this problem: the butterfly is equipped with a special gland that produces alkaline saliva, the use of which softens the wall of the cocoon and helps to release the newly formed butterfly. So the silkworm completes the circle of its own transformations.

However, industrial breeding of the silkworm interrupts the reproduction of butterflies. The bulk of the cocoons is used to produce raw silk. After all, this is a finished product, it remains only to unwind the cocoons on special machines, after killing the pupae and treating the cocoons with steam and high temperature water (100 degrees), and the cocoon unwinds very easily after that. So, the silkworm, the cultivation of which on an industrial scale will probably never lose its relevance, is a magnificent example of a domesticated insect that brings a very considerable income.

It would take a ton of mulberry leaves to feed thirty thousand caterpillars, enough for the insects to weave five kilograms of silk thread. The usual production rate of five thousand caterpillars yields one kilogram of silk thread.

One silk cocoon gives 90 grams natural fabric. The length of one of the threads of a silk cocoon can exceed 1 km. Now imagine how much work a silkworm needs to work on, if on average 1,500 cocoons are spent on one silk dress.

Useful properties of silk thread

Silkworm saliva contains sericin, a substance that protects silk from pests such as moths and mites. The caterpillar secretes a viscous substance of sloping origin (silk glue) from which it spins a silk thread. Despite the fact that most of this substance is lost during the manufacture of silk fabric, even the little that remains in the silk fibers can save the fabric from the appearance of dust mites.

Thanks to serecin, silk has hypoallergenic properties. Due to its elasticity and incredible strength, silk thread is used in surgery for suturing. Silk is used in aviation; parachutes and balloon shells are sewn from silk fabric.

Silkworms and cosmetics

Interesting fact. Few people know that a silk cocoon is an invaluable product; it is not destroyed even after all silk threads are removed. Empty cocoons are used in cosmetology. Masks and lotions are prepared from them not only in professional circles, but also at home.

silkworm gourmet food

Few people know about the nutritional properties of the silk caterpillar. This ideal protein product, it is widely used in Asian cuisine. In China, the larvae are steamed and grilled, seasoned, usually with a huge amount of spices you don’t even understand what “is on the plate”.

In Korea, they eat half-cooked silkworms, for which they are lightly fried. This is a good source of protein.

Dried caterpillars are commonly used in traditional Chinese and Tibetan medicine. The most interesting thing is that mold fungi are added to the “medicine”.

What do good intentions lead to?

Few people know that the gypsy moth, which is the main pest of the US forestry industry, spread as a result of an unsuccessful experiment. As they say, I wanted the best, but the following came out.

At the end of the nineteenth century, one man had the idea to bring out a new species, he planned to cross the silkworm and the gypsy moth. To get an insect that will be less "fastidious in food", but at the same time it must produce silk thread. For this purpose, a batch of gypsy moth cocoons was brought from Europe to America. The experiment ended in complete failure. The scientist failed to cross these types of silkworms, but the gypsy moth is “comfortably” located in America and is now harming the forestry of the United States of America.

Only the facts

Silk thread is very strong, able to withstand great pressure. Ropes made of silk are more efficient than ropes made of steel of the same thickness.
It takes about 3,000 silkworm cocoons to produce 1m of silk fabric.
Almost 80% of the world's silk production belongs to China.

To create a silk thread sufficient to produce fabric for 1 dress, silkworms need to eat about 70 kg of leaves.

1 silkworm caterpillar, from its transformation into a chrysalis, eats mulberry leaves, which are 40 thousand times larger in mass than its weight.

1 silkworm caterpillar in 4 weeks from the moment of its birth increases in size by 25 times, its mass increases by 12 thousand times.

The speed at which the silkworm produces its thread can be 15 meters per minute.

The silkworm caterpillar weaves its cocoon in 3-4 days.

Here is a useful silkworm.

1 In Dalat, my mother and I went to a silk factory. In general, there are three types of them: a silk farm where silkworm larvae are grown; a factory where threads are pulled from cocoons and a little silk is woven; a factory where pictures and other products are embroidered with silk. The latter is the most hyped place, the XQ company (which even has a website in Russian), which bash the guides and they take tourists there in batches. We also wanted to get there, but did not have time, but we decided to get to the factory where the threads are drawn by any means. Excursions are also taken there, but few and mostly foreigners. We went there by taxi, but it turned out to be 30 km away (although the taxi driver said that it was 20). And so we go further and further and are angry that we got like this, not to return, but after visiting the factory we calmed down and realized that it was worth it. It was very interesting! Here is a very detailed report.)

2 This is how ready-made pupated larvae hatch.

3 On such flat wicker baskets.

4 Kura wants to eat a larva or two, but they chase her)

6 When we arrived there was a lunch break, the girls ate, and we walked around the empty room, stuck our nose everywhere, shot ourselves. It’s twilight there and I stubbornly didn’t get sharp shots and I was already upset that everything was gone, but I took off the polarizer, turned up the sensitivity and everything seemed to work out more or less, cheers!

7 At first there was absolute silence and everything stood still and we could not understand what was happening. But suddenly everything around rustled, crackled, moved, spun, and the girls stood up to the machines.

8 They take a clump of cocoons with chopsticks and first put them in a pot of boiling water so that the larvae will boil and die. The smell there is a little sickening, the smell is similar to boiled meat, only more specific. Later, when we bought scarves, they were soaked with this smell and even after I washed it, there was still a little left, buee.

9 Cocoons are boiled in such a saucepan.

10 Boiled and wet cocoons.

12 I used to think that they were looking for the very tip of the thread in the cocoon in order to unwind it. In fact, I realized that this is of course nonsense, they just pull the cobweb from the surface. Here you can see how the thread goes from each cocoon.

14 And here is the second myth. I thought that the thread from the cocoon is the final thread. This is not true. The silk thread is twisted from several micro-threads. The number of these threads determines the thickness of the finished thread and, accordingly, the thickness of the future fabric. See the row of "dushiki"? So, these are not souls, but threads from cocoons. The girl brings a bunch of threads with her finger to these rapidly spinning pimps and the threads seem to be sucked in there and twisted.

19 Finished skeins with silk thread.

27 Barrigadir))

28 Unwound cocoons look like this.

29 I took this photo last year at the COOP market. Then I did not suspect that these were "silk" larvae. I'm not 100% sure, but they are very similar and logically fit. Otherwise, where else can they put the spent larvae?)

30 There are also some looms here, where plain cloth is woven. Above, to the left of the machine, you can see a hanging stack of punched cards.

31 These are cards in which the fabric pattern is encoded. A thread is passed through each hole and then they are cunningly shifted on the machine and a pattern is magically obtained.

36 And on this machine I make coarse silk burlap. For what we did not understand, maybe purely for decorative purposes.

37 And on this single machine, threads are made according to the same principle as the others, but only thick and with knots, boucle threads.

39 From these threads, then such scarves are obtained. Mom and I bought these for just 6 bucks, in different colors. They stank of boiled larvae)

40 Dyed fabrics are drying in the yard.

41 The choice of fabrics here is quite small.

43 Here scarves are hemmed and fringes are made.

44 And here they do embroidery. But only too unpretentious at all. There is no insane beauty here. Everything is beauty at the XQ factory.

Silk is obtained from silkworm cocoons., but obtaining fiber for its production is a rather lengthy process that needs care, scrupulousness and attention.

To obtain high quality silk, two conditions must be met:

understand in time that the time has come to process the cocoon;
exactly follow the established nutritional system of silkworms.

Of all the silkworm species, the most valuable is the Bombyx mori, which produces the highest quality Mulberry silk fiber. This type of silkworm is grown artificially, that is, it does not occur in the wild. Silkworm butterflies are specially bred for the sole purpose of laying eggs for breeding caterpillars and silk production, so they are practically unable to fly and they even lack vision. Their life expectancy is several days, which they live in search of a partner, after which she lays up to 500 eggs within 5 days on the leaves of a mulberry tree.

Silkworm eggs are small, 500 eggs weigh only 5 grams. Caterpillars hatch from the cocoon in 10-12 days. It takes 6,000 caterpillars to produce 1 kilogram of silk fiber. To turn the caterpillars into a "chrysalis", and then into a butterfly, silkworms eat enough, they eat the leaves of the mulberry tree, which are grown for this purpose and are environmentally friendly, non-stop day and night.

The development cycle from caterpillar to cocoon lasts about a month. The silk mass for the cocoon is formed from the salivary gland of the caterpillar, which makes up 40% of its weight. The formed silk mass has a light yellow color, which has a glossy tint, this mass formed in the glands has a complex composition of fibroin and sericin, and 18 more elements.

When the time comes to turn into a cocoon, the caterpillar stops eating leaves non-stop and begins to spin a strong thread around itself. The cocoon is formed within three days. As a result, we get 950–1450 meters of an inseparable thread, but when unfolded, the cocoon remains only 500–800 meters, since there is no way to unfold the outer and inner layers, which are protective. When the formed cocoons are ready, they are collected, subjected to heat treatment with hot steam, moistened, on a specialized machine, some of the threads are among themselves. They are very thin, and how many threads will be combined depends on what kind of material, subsequently, the desired silk structure will be obtained from it.

The subsequent processing of silk fabrics to give them the desired properties consists of several stages:

Boiling
At this stage, the fabric is boiled in a soapy solution for about three hours. This is done for degluing, that is, for the final removal of sericin. This makes the silk soft and easy to dye.
Coloring
The structure of the silk fiber allows you to deeply impregnate the fabric, as a result, the color is preserved for a long time. The threads can be dyed in skeins before they reach the loom, or the fabric itself can be dyed.
revival
Treatment with acetic acid essence to obtain shine and rich color.
Decating
The fabric is exposed to high pressure hot steam to relieve stress on the internal composition, fiber structure.

Silk is a soft fiber made from the cocoon of silkworm caterpillars. Its production, which originated in China, has hardly changed to this day, this process has remained complex and time-consuming, as a result of which the price of natural silk is high.

The fiber from which the thread will subsequently be made consists of fibroin (75%) and sericin (25%), and in small quantities fats, wax and minerals are included. If we talk about the size of a silk thread, then it is much thinner than a human hair, and in length it can stretch an average of one and a half kilometers. Such a fiber is quite durable and water-repellent, because its purpose is to protect the tracks from external threats.

Story

In ancient times, silk originated and was mined only in China. The production technique was a strict secret, and for divulging the secret, the guilty person was subjected to the most serious punishment for betrayal - death. Thus, China was a monopolist in the manufacture of silk fabrics, for this reason the cost of silk was very high, its value was compared with gold, that is, they paid for it with such an amount of gold as the mass of the fabric itself was.

After a while, Persia took over the entire trade in Chinese silk, but the price still remained high. In this case, the Byzantine emperor Justinian decided to steal the secret of producing valuable fabric. Presumably in 550 AD. e. the emperor sent two monks to China in order to solve the mystery. Two years later, the monks returned to Byzantium, bringing with them the eggs of silkworm caterpillars. As a result, the long-kept secret technology was revealed and spread.

At all times, natural silk has been valued due to its unique qualities, but few people know what these qualities are due to. In this article, we decided to touch on the origin of the most famous natural fabric.

The world leader in the production of natural silk, as it should be the homeland of this material, is China. For many centuries, Chinese silk has been valued all over the world. This reputation is justified by the high quality and fineness of the resulting thread. It should be noted the complex production technologies that the inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom have been developing and improving for more than one century.

Today, India and Uzbekistan, which occupy the second and third places in the ranking of world production of silk fabric, seriously compete with China in sericulture. Brazil, Iran and Thailand are also significant producers.

The commercial process for making high-quality silk is very complex and time-consuming. The quality of the resulting silk thread directly depends on human care.

The main secret of the process of high-quality silk is that the silkworms are always full, and butterflies do not have time to appear from the cocoons.

Consider the main stages of silk production:
The appearance of the silkworm

The first stage of silk production is the placement of silk butterfly eggs in an incubator, where they are stored for 10 days at a temperature of 18-20 ° C. At one time, the female can lay up to 400 eggs. After incubation, larvae (caterpillars) are born from them.

Caterpillar feeding

After the birth of the caterpillars, they are placed under a thin layer of gauze and served with a large amount of crushed mulberry leaves. By feeding on such food, silkworms can produce the finest and shiniest silk.
During this period, human care is very important for the larvae. Loud noises, drafts, and foreign odors can kill silkworms, and silkworms fed to them should be dry and finely chopped. To do this, farmers turn the leaves in the sun until they are completely dry.

The larvae feed densely for 6 weeks and increase their original weight by 10,000 times. Over this long period, they shed their skin several times and subsequently acquire a white-gray color.

The sound of silkworms chewing is often compared to rain falling on a roof.

The feeding process continues until the silkworms accumulate enough energy to move into the cocoon stage.

Creation of a cocoon

When it comes time to build cocoons, silkworms begin to produce a jelly-like substance in their silk glands that hardens when it comes into contact with air.

During the pupation period for four to eight days, the caterpillar is attached to a wooden frame and twists the cocoon until it becomes dense enough. At the same time, the silkworm turns its body about 300 thousand times along the contour of the number "8" and produces about a kilometer of silk thread.

Thread winding

After a week in a warm, dry place, the cocoons are ready to unwind. To do this, they are placed in a special container and treated with steam and hot water to kill the worms. Then the silk fibers begin to unwind from the cocoon, using at the same time 5-8 units to create one strong thread.

Video of the process of "winding" threads

Fabric Creation

Raw silk contains sericin, which is removed with soap and boiling water, after which the threads are combed. As a result of this procedure, silk becomes more shiny, but loses up to 30% of its weight.

It takes 5,000 silkworms to produce a kilogram of silk.

Finally, the yarn process begins and the silk threads are turned into fabric, which is subsequently hand-dyed.

Broken threads and damaged cocoons are processed into yarn and sold as "silk silk", which is inferior in quality to the wound product, but costs much less.

As a result of such a complex and laborious process, a light and refined fabric is obtained, from which silk dresses, silk blouses, silk shirts and scarves from natural silk are produced.

The network of salons "Khansky cashmere" presents accessories and clothes made of natural silk.