Introduction
The fastest growing woody plant on this planet is bamboo. It
grows one third faster than the fastest growing tree. Some species can grow up
to 1 meter per day. Bamboo is just grass, but it
varies in height from dwarf, one foot (30 cm) plants to giant timber bamboos
that can grow to over 100 feet (30 m). It grows in many different climates,
from jungles to high on mountainsides. Bamboos are further classified by the
types of roots they have. Some, called runners, spread exuberantly, and others
are classified as clampers (sympodial), which slowly expand from the original
planting. There are also varieties of root systems that are a mixture of these
types. Generally, the tropical bamboos tend to be clumpers and the
temperate bamboos tend to be runners.
Bamboo fiber and starchy pulp are made from
bamboo that grows widely through Asian countries. Starchy pulp is a refined product of bamboo stems and leaves through a process of hydrolysis-alkalization and multi-phase
bleaching. Chemical fiber factories then process it into bamboo fiber.
Bamboo is both decorative and useful. In many
parts of the world it is food, fodder, the primary construction material and is
used for making great variety of useful objects from kitchen tools, to paper to
dinnerware. Generally bamboos are commonly used for furniture,
construction, musical instruments and many more things.
Bamboo is not only highly fashionable for decorative
purposes but useful too. As it is a viable replacement for wood, in Far Eastern
countries, it is the primary building material. Bamboo is in fact one of the
strongest building materials available and even provided the first re-greening
in Hiroshima after the atomic blast in 1945. Bamboo's tensile strength is
28,000 per square inch versus 23,000 for steel.
Botanically, bamboo is classified as:
|
KINGDOM
DIVISION
CLASS
SUBCLASS
ORDER
FAMILY
SUBFAMILY
TRIBE
SUBTRIBE
|
: Plantae
: Magnoliophyta
: Liliopsida
: Commelinidae
: Cyperales
: Gramineae (Poaceae)
: Bambusoideae
: Bambuseae
: Bambusinae
|
Compared with other textiles, bamboo fiber has the following
advantages:
Natural anti-bacteria
It's a common fact that bamboo can thrive naturally without
using any pesticide. It is seldom eaten by pests or infected by pathogen. Why?
Scientists found that bamboo owns a unique anti-bacteria and bio-agent named "bamboo
Kun". This substance combined with bamboo cellulose molecular tightly all
along during the process of being produced into bamboo fiber.