Cotton gins typically generate supplemental returns from selling lint cleaner waste (LCW), commonly called “motes”. The LCW is usually cleaned with a cylinder cleaner at the gin before selling to a merchant or secondary processor. This study evaluated the performance of an experimental machine that used both seed cotton cleaning and lint cleaning principles to clean LCW. The new machine consisted of a modified six-cylinder cleaner coupled with two lint cleaning saws as well as a fiber retaining saw. The performance of the experimental machine preceded by a conventional cylinder cleaner was compared to the performances of both a conventional cylinder cleaner that simulated gin-level cleaning, and a sequence of three seed cotton-type cleaners followed by two saw-type lint cleaners that simulated cleaning at a secondary processing plant. Two levels of initial foreign matter content (FMC) and two levels of moisture were incorporated into the test. Results indicated that the experimental machine increased the gross returns for the gin by 0.61 per dollar bale of ginned lint over the conventional cylinder cleaner, but the returns from the three seed cotton-type cleaners in conjunction with the two saw-type lint cleaners exceeded that from the experimental machine by 0.55 per dollar bale of ginned lint. Therefore, the current version of the experimental machine would benefit a gin plant.
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