Abstract
Lyocell fibers are ecological cellulose regenerated fibers and represent the most important discovery in the field of “artificial fiber engineering”. These fibers can be situated at the border between natural fibers (in terms of comfort, biodegradability) and chemical fibers (by high resistance in dry and wet environment, low contraction). In order to characterize the structural Lyocell fiber properties, electronic microscopy analyses, birefringence and X-ray diffraction have been accomplished. The present analysis on the structural properties of Lyocell fibers allowed to conclude that the microscopic images depict that Lyocell fibers present uniform longitudinal aspect and regular cross-section; the Lyocell fiber birefringence is 1.6 times higher than similar feature of viscose fiber (0.04263 as compared to 0.0265) and the diffraction analysis reveals that the distortion degree of the crystal lattice of Lyocell and viscose fibers is in accordance with the crystalline factor. The average tenacity – deformation diagrams for Lyocell and viscose fibres, in conditioned and in wet medium, allowed to determine the rheological parameters of the fibers. Keywords: Lyocell fiber properties, electronic microscopy, birefringence, diffraction analyses