Interpretation of Newly Revised Cotton National Standards

I. Background of the National Standard Reform of Cotton In September 2003, the State Council approved the "Cotton Quality Inspection System Reform Plan" (hereinafter referred to as the "Program"). The "Program" clearly stated that it will strive to use five years or so to adopt a scientific, unified, and internationally-accepted cotton inspection technology standard system to implement instrumental and universal authoritative inspections at the cotton processing link, and to establish a country that complies with China's national conditions, and The international practice is consistent with the scientific and authoritative cotton quality inspection system, and clearly requires the development of national cotton color feature maps and its application software, and the development of cotton quality standards and related technical specifications adapted to instrumental testing.

In the process of implementing the reform of the quality inspection system, the cotton national standard has undergone two major revisions. In 2007, the State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine and the National Standards Committee approved the issuance and implementation of GB1103-2007 “Cotton Cotton” national standards. This version of the standard adds physical indicators such as the length and length uniformity of the HVI test and still retains the cotton grade indicator. Because HVI can achieve the test of length, length and other indicators, and can not test the grade of cotton, therefore, the cotton quality inspection system reform has not fully achieved the goal of cotton quality instrumentation inspection.

In order to further promote the reform of the cotton quality inspection system, a comprehensive instrumental inspection of the cotton quality indicators will be implemented as soon as possible, and at the same time, the integration with international cotton quality indicators will be accelerated, and cotton color grading indicators will be urgently needed. However, the reform of grade indicators and the introduction of new color-level indicators that meet the requirements of instrumental inspections are extremely complicated and difficult system projects. To this end, various departments have carried out a lot of research work. Since 2004, China Fiber Inspection Bureau has taken the lead in carrying out research on the cotton color grading system, collecting representative cotton samples from different cotton regions in China, and producing physical standards for color grades and physical standards for the quality of rolled goods, and established color grading charts. . In the cotton year of 2008, 2009 and 2010, cotton color-level verification tests were jointly organized in the production, acquisition, processing, inspection, and use phases, and the color grading system was revised and improved.

In the 2011 cotton year, cotton color-level inspections were carried out in the above-mentioned links, and the pilot work on grade inspections was cancelled and good results have been achieved. Currently, the sawtooth-processing fine-pile cotton has the conditions for full implementation of cotton color-level inspection.

The 2010 national cotton work conference call clearly stated that “we must pay close attention to the introduction of a national cotton quality standard that fully adopts an instrumented quality indicator system”, in order to implement the 2010 National Cotton Work Conference on the spirit of the teleconference, and to do business with relevant departments, 2011-2012. Accelerated the process of revision of cotton national standards. The National Standardization Committee issued the newly revised national cotton standard on November 21, 2012, which was implemented from the 2013 cotton year (since September 1, 2013).

Second, a brief review of the revisions of previous standards Since 1972, China's first release of the "cotton (fine cotton)" national standard, has been revised three times so far, each revision is in a specific economic background, reform requirements and technology Supported by horizontal support.

From the perspective of the cotton standard reform process, the first cotton national standard that was introduced after the founding of the People's Republic of China was the “cotton (fine cotton)” national standard issued in 1972, which was restricted by the technological level at that time. The notable feature of the standard was the The sensory test was simple and quick, and it played a positive role in the production, purchase, processing, circulation, and use of cotton in China at that time.

With the development of China’s cotton industry and the deepening of the reform of the cotton circulation system, the State Council in 1998 put forward the decision to deepen the reform of the cotton circulation system and clearly proposed to “accelerate the reform of the cotton national standards. The specific measures are regulated by the State Economic and Trade Commission and national quality and technical supervision. The bureau took the lead in organizing relevant departments to formulate it for the 1999 cotton trial." In 1999, the relevant departments proposed to change the length of cotton from 2mm to 1mm, and to change the standard moisture content of cotton from 10% to 8.5% of the official moisture regain. The first time to use the micronaire value as an indicator of cotton quality assessment. The revision of this standard introduced public weight, embodying the trade fairness of cotton weight inspection and the introduction of the micronaire index. It also increased the physical performance index of quantitative inspection and achieved a breakthrough from sensory inspection to instrument inspection.

The revision of the standard in 2007 was to meet the needs of the reform of the quality inspection system. At that time, China had already completed a number of cotton processing enterprises' technological upgrading. The fiber inspection system established a certain number of cotton instrumentation testing laboratories, purchased a certain number of HVI instruments, and accumulated a certain amount of cotton inspection data. All of these are to revise China's cotton standard and incorporate cotton instrumental inspection indicators into the standard system, providing objective conditions and technical support. The revision of this standard has significantly revised the length indicator and unified the hand-pull test to the average length of the first half of the HVI test. Added cotton quality indicators such as length, length uniformity, and fracture specific strength for HVI testing. Established a cotton standard that is applicable to both sensory and instrumental tests, not only conforming to China's national conditions, but also embodying international standards.

Third, why the new standard is divided into GB1103.1 and GB1103.2?

In view of the existence of two different processing methods of saw tooth processing and roller processing in cotton fine cotton, the current cotton color classification system is based on the serrated cotton, it is not suitable for the requirements of the paper roll cotton testing, so Rollercotton still retains cotton grade indicators and their inspection methods. Taking into account the retention of quality and color quality indicators in a standard at the same time is not conducive to the abolition of grade indicators, but also the confusion of standard methods and contents. Therefore, the GB1103 standard was revised into two parts, namely GB1103.1-2012 "Cotton Part 1: Saw-to-Tip Processed Fine Cotton" and GB1103.2-2012 "Cotton Part 2: Treadmill Processed Fine-Cotton", where Saw-tooth processing of fine velveteen cotton adopts a color grading index system, and the roller processing of fine velveteen cotton still maintains the grade-level index system.

Fourth, the main content of the new standard The main revision of GB1103.1 includes 19 aspects. Involving grade, length, foreign fiber content requirements, sampling rules, inspection methods, inspection sequence, batch approval rules, inspection certificates, etc.

The core content is to reform the cotton grade indicators. The grade of cotton is comprehensively judged by the color characteristics, maturity, and quality of the cotton. It is the main indicator of the current trade price of cotton and has been implemented for 40 years. Studies have shown that HVI cannot test cotton grades, but can test reflectance and yellowness indicators that reflect the color characteristics of cotton and test micronaire values ​​that represent the maturity of cotton. Therefore, the idea of ​​reforming the grade index in this standard is to split the three conditions of the grade index, and to replace it with the color grade, micronaire value, fracture strength ratio, and the quality of the press.

The color grade is determined according to the lightness and darkness of the cotton and the depth of the yellow color. It is divided into four types: white cotton, light-stained cotton, light yellow-stained cotton, and yellow-stained cotton, and the total is 13 color levels. The white cotton grade 3 is a color grade standard grade. The quality of the mill is divided into three grades: good, medium and poor, depending on the coarseness of the appearance of the cotton and the degree of the flaws contained. In order to meet the needs of the national conditions, color grades and the quality of the rolling mills are also used to produce national physical standards to meet the needs of the agricultural and commercial acquisitions and spot trades. The increase of these contents has not only adapted to the needs of the reform of the cotton inspection system, but has also led to a significant increase in the level of cotton standards and inspection technology in China. It has also paid more attention to the inherent quality of cotton and has basically achieved convergence with international standards in the setting of quality indicators. It also reflects Chinese characteristics.

Specifically, GB1103.1-2012 “Cotton Part 1: Saw-to-Tip Processed Cotton”, compared with GB1103-2007, the main technical changes are as follows:

- Canceled the grade, increased the color grade, rolling quality indicators and inspection methods.

- Change the color feature level to color level.

- Added the definition of "white cotton, light-stained cotton, light-yellow-dyed cotton, yellow-dyed cotton, main color grade, and quality of rolling."

- Increased color grading, color grading, and color-level physical standards.

- Added the sensory test of the color-level test and the content of the large-capacity fast cotton fiber tester (hereinafter referred to as the "rapid fiber tester").

——Increase the quality division of the rolling mill, the condition of the quality of the rolling quality, the reference quality of the rolling quality, and the physical standard of the quality of the rolling quality.

——Increase the quality of the miller by taking the sensory inspection.

- The definition of "Public Weight" was revised.

- The definition and calculation method of "Quasi-heavy, seed cotton quasi-heavy clothing" were deleted.

- The quality inspection and weight inspection of lint cotton were modified to separate sampling, inspection and certification.

- Revised the number of seed cotton samples.

- The sampling of the lint chute was modified to pre-package inspection sampling.

- The provisions for inspection of impurity rate by inspection unit when the package-by-package inspection was cancelled.

- Change the micronaire value according to GB/T 6498 to 30% of the number of randomly sampled batches as the micronaire test sample to modify the micronaire value for the batch sample.

——Modified test items, inspection order and batch approval rules for seed cotton and lint cotton.

- The cotton quality mark of the batch inspection shall be modified to be marked in the order of "the main color grade, the length grade, and the main micronaire value level of cotton".

- Revised the range of the heterosexual fiber content of the bales.

- Increased the "breakage ratio strength, length uniformity index" sub-file name.

——Repeated the restriction that “the length of grades 6 and 7 is 25mm, which is recorded as 25.0mm”.

For details of the new standard, please contact the publishing department to purchase.

V. Challenges arising from the implementation of the new standard First, the reform of the trade settlement system. At present, the settlement of domestic cotton trade, especially the setting of the settlement index system, is mainly grade, length and micronaire values. For a long time, the market has formed a set of common trade pricing rules. However, the newly revised cotton national standard GB1103.1 (saw-toothed cotton) changes the quality evaluation index of cotton from grade to color grade, and increases the quality index of the mill, the fracture strength ratio bin, and the length uniformity. . Because there is no one-to-one correspondence between the grades in the old standards and the color grades in the new standards, according to the results of the new standard inspection, how to conduct trade settlement is an urgent problem that needs to be solved. Therefore, the implementation of the new standard will overturn the existing trade settlement system. The trade-based settlement system (especially the quality difference price) based on the grade has been unable to adapt to the requirements of the new situation and it needs to be reformulated.

The second is to change the concept of cotton grading. The cotton grade test was implemented for 40 years. In the mind of cotton graders, the concept of grade level is deeply rooted. After the new standard is formally implemented, the processing link fully implements the instrumental inspection of the color level. Due to the different concept of grade and color grades, it is necessary to change the concept of cotton graders who are used to inspecting grades. How to carry out cotton color grade inspection will directly affect the effect of implementing cotton color grading system.