A Chinese company has successfully produced fiber from maize and blended it with bamboo fiber to make environment-friendly clothes.
The blended fiber is similar to Dacron, said Liu Jinhong, chairman of Suzhou Bangbo Company in east China's Jiangsu Province, while the clothes are soft and comfortable with an enhanced wrinkle resistance.
Maize is first made into starch, and then after a series of procedures spun into fiber.
U.S. scientists have succeeded in the production of fiber from maize more than a decade ago, and there are such factories in Taiwan. The technology is not widely used due to its complexity and high cost.
Chinese researchers in Shanghai developed maize fiber last year using a new technology that reduces costs by 30 percent. It still takes ten tons of maize to produce one ton of fiber.
The company plans to turn 4,000 tons of maize into clothes this year, Liu said. The department of science and technology of Jiangsu has drawn up a plan to promote the products.
The company said it succeeded in making fiber from bamboo in 2004 and the selling is well.
