ATIRA’s cotton gin upgrades to cut power use by 40%

AHMEDABAD: The Ahmedabad Textile Industry’s Research Association (ATIRA) is in the process of developing a new technology for cotton gins (machines to seperate seed from fibre), which will reduce power consumption the during ginning process by 40%.
ATIRA was given a year-long research and development project, to improve the cotton ginning process by the state government’s department of industries and mines.

“The technology currently used is more than 30 years old and needs to be upgraded. The complex machinery currently used have several moving parts. We are making an effort to improve the process by reducing the number of moving parts in ginning machinery. This will help reduce power consumption by around 40%,” said R M Sankar, principal scientific officer, ATIRA.

Researchers at ATIRA aim at completing the project in 10 months. This technology upgrade will help make maintenance easier and increase production, according to the scientists.

“As we are trying to reduce the number of moving parts, the consumption of spare parts will also be reduced. Therefore, maintenance costs will also come down by a significant 40%,” said Sankar. Currently, production speed is around 70kg per hour, according to the researchers. This will increase by an 28% to around 90kg per hour, ATIRA officials said.