Tencel, viscose, Modal, Lycel… Can you tell the difference?

1、 Viscose and Rayon:

Firstly, it should be clarified that both Viscose and Rayon represent adhesive fibers, and there is no difference. In some places, Viscose Rayon is also used to represent adhesive fibers.

In Europe, ISO standards are commonly used with Viscose, while FTC in the United States is accustomed to using Rayon, which later also recognized ISO’s Viscose.

In China, some people, in order to distinguish between viscose filament and staple fiber, use Viscose to represent filament, called “rayon”, and Rayon to represent staple fiber, called “rayon”.

2、 Modal:

Modal belongs to the category of regenerated cellulose fibers with high wet modulus (HWM). (See Table 1 for the second category)

In the early 1940s, Japan successfully developed a high moisture modulus viscose short fiber, known as “Toramomon Tiger Kapok”. China also produced this fiber in 1965, named “Fuqiang Fiber”, abbreviated as “Fuxian”. This fiber overcomes the fatal disadvantage of viscose fiber and has properties similar to cotton fiber. In the early 1950s, high moisture modulus viscose fibers achieved industrial production.

The most famous is the Austrian company Lenzing, which named the high moisture modulus regenerated cellulose fiber Lenzing Modal. Later, the term Modal also became synonymous with high moisture modulus viscose fiber. Now, the ISO standard has a fiber classification for Modal, which can be used to identify textile tags.

3、 Tencel and Lyocell:

Tencel is a trademark name for Lyocell fibers produced by Acocdis in the UK, registered as “Tencel” in Chinese. The Lyocell fiber of Lenzing (Lanjing) in Austria is named Lenzing Lyocell.

In 2004, Austrian Orchid acquired Tencel, a subsidiary of Acordis, making Tencel a trademark of Lenzing.

Lyocell fibers belong to high-strength regenerated cellulose fibers. (See the third category in Table 1) It was officially named by the International Commission on Artificial Fiber and Synthetic fiber in 1989. The FTC in the United States has classified Lyocell as a type of adhesive fiber that can be used for textile labeling.

4、 Differences among viscose, Modal and Les Aires:

How to distinguish between adhesive and modal?

According to the definition of BISFA, the strength and wet modulus of Modal must reach the specified values, that is, its breaking strength must be greater than 3.14cN/dtex, and its wet modulus must be greater than 8.8cN/dtex.

The difference between Modal and Les Aires:

Both viscose and Modal are regenerated cellulose fibers by viscose method, while Les Aires is regenerated cellulose fibers by solvent method.

The former is formed by sulfonating cellulose to form cellulose Sulfonate before dissolving it in caustic soda, and then spraying wire for desulfurization; The latter is formed by directly dissolving cellulose in NMMO and spinning it.