For a summary of these very large and extensively studied areas see. In 2016, cotton accounted for 25.9%; (~23.3 x 10⁶ T) and man-made cellulosic fibres 6.1% (~5.4 x 10⁶ T) of the total world textile fibre production of 89.1 x 10⁶ T (Figure 2). It is apparent that cellulosic fibres, in the guise of both cotton and man-made cellulosic fibres, are the second most popular fibre type after PES, which comprised ~58.4% (52.4 x 10⁶ T) of world fibre demand in 2016.

Figure 2 World fibre production 2016

Cotton is the seed hair of species of a wide variety of plants of the Gossypium family. Because of its outstanding global popularity, the fibre has received extensive investigation over a long period of time. Indeed, not only is cotton the most widely studied of all types of textile fibre, but the polymer that is basis of all cellulosic fibres, namely cellulose, is the most widely studied of all polymers. Aspects of the cultivation, characterisation, structure, physical and chemical characteristics, processing and spinning, etc. of cotton have enjoyed considerable attention. In a similar manner, the preparation and processing of CV fibres are well documented, the soluble cellulose ester derivative, sodium cellulose xanthate (Cell-OCS₂^–Na⁺) being wet spun to regenerate the constituent cellulose polymer in fibre form; the development and manufacture of jet-wet spun CLY fibres from cellulose/water/NMMO solution have been much discussed.

In essence, whilst natural cellulosic fibres display a wide range of characteristic properties such as diameter, length, colour, etc., which are determined during growth, the characteristic properties of man-made cellulosic fibres are determined during fibre preparation and processing.

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