Diversified post-harvest treatment of eri cocoon and its effect on spun yarn

Eri silk worm is known to be reared indoor in different part of the world with diverse expectation of silk, food and biomaterial. It possesses a very unique characteristics than other silk found in India. The cocoon is open mounted and have discontinuous filaments as moth emerges from its own and thus can be spun only rather than reeled. Before spinning into yarn, the cocoon was treated with alkaline solution made with traditional formulation of different plant ash to make alkaline solutions. The alkaline solutions of 10ml each is used to degummed the sericin from 400 cocoon but it's after effect on fibre and yarn quality is yet to be assess. Hence, pre and post treatment of eri cocoon before spinning was undertaken and found that cocoon treated with alkaline solution of plaintain ash and black gram plant ash extracts is found more appropriate method of degumming than chemically treated cocoon with sodium-bicarbonate.