Preparation and characterisation of mechanically milled particles from waste alpaca fibres

In this work, a chemical free green processing route was followed to fabricate alpaca powders from waste alpaca
fibres. The waste fibres were converted into powders with the average particle size of 2.5 μm without using any
chemicals neither in pre-treatment nor in powder fabrication process. Despite visible morphological changes of
the powder samples, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (NMR) and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR)
revealed no chemical change or shift in the functional groups. The crystallinity of the powdered samples decreased
with the reduction of particle size in different stages of the milling process. The differential scanning calorimetry
(DSC) and thermogravimetric (TGA) test results revealed that the thermal stability of the alpaca powder
was almost similar to that of alpaca fibre. The air jet-milled powder showed an increase in moisture regain and
moisture content by around 38% and 33% respectively than that of alpaca fibres. The results suggest that alpaca
powders have a great potential to be introduced to a wide range of new applications.