Comparisons of the Fourier Transform Infrared Spectra of cashmere, guard hair, wool and other animal fibres

AbstractFourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), identifies chemical bands related to chemical bonds including amino acid groups. The potential for FTIR to differentiate animal fibres from different origins was investigated using cashmere (Chinese, Australian, Iranian), wool (Chinese, Australian), bison wool, qiviut from Musk-ox, vicuna and guard hairs present in these raw fibre samples. Cashmere from a controlled nutrition experiment with known amino acid composition was included in the study. While the intensity of FTIR spectra were moderately correlated with the content of some of the amino acids in cashmere, this investigation did not detect any significant systematic effects of nutritional manipulation of cashmere goats on the FTIR spectra of their cashmere. Significant differences were detected in the intensity of FTIR spectra between cashmere and wool, cashmere from different origins, white and coloured cashmere, and between cashmere and hair. The FTIR spectra of cashmere and wool overlapped...