Fabrics identification information
Supported materials
Our FabriTell supports 10 pure materials (our latest models also support pure polypropylene) and 13 blends:
Cotton
| Silk
| Wool
| Nylon (polyamide)
| Polyester
|
Acrylic
| Elastane (spandex)
| Acetate
| Viscose
| Polypropylene
|
The blends include:
|
|
Our FabriTells CAN identify:
Single fibres: pure samples of cotton, polyester, viscose, silk, polyamide, acrylic, wool, elastane, acetate and polypropylene.
Two-component blends: Can identify the most commonly encountered 2-component blends of the above fibres in 1% increments (accurate within ±10% of actual composition).
Materials of all weaves and colours: works across different structures and colours, including black garments (except those containing carbon black).
Our FabriTells CANNOT identify:
Samples containing carbon black. This pigment absorbs nearly all infrared light and as a result, we don't get any useful information from the sample. This is a problem shared with other NIR identification machine and there isn't much we can do. Fortunately, most textiles do not contain carbon black and can still be identified.
Materials present at very low percentages (< 5%, e.g. elastane) as the NIR spectrum of the sample would look the same as the same or when hidden inside weave.
Distinguish cotton and viscose at low % (< 30%) as they are both cellulose and very chemically similar (the chain length being the primary difference).
The overall composition of a non-uniform garment: NIR is very much surface-based and it can only detect what is present on the surface of the sample, not inside it. For instance, hoodies are often poly-cottons and whilst the label could e.g. say 65% cotton and 35% polyester, the fluffy inside of the hoodie would be mostly polyester while the smooth outside would be mostly cotton.
Chemically identical samples: NIR cannot distinguish fibres that are chemically the same but differ only in origin and microscopic structure e.g. wool vs. cashmere or cotton vs. linen.
Blends with 3 or more components: it is already highly challenging to recognise 2 component blends. The machine will most likely identify the two major components in case of the multi-component blends.
Please note the identification comments for other fibres:
- Cotton: All other plant-based natural fibres (e.g. ramie, flax, linen, hemp) will also be identified as cotton. Since they are chemically identical, NIR cannot distinguish between them.
- Viscose: All other chemically processed plant-based fibres (e.g. rayon, lyocell, Tencel, modal, cupro, bamboo) will be identified as viscose.
- Wool: All other mammal-derived fibres (e.g. cashmere, alpaca, mohair, camel, mink) will be identified as wool, as they share the same chemical composition.