Rayon

Rayon is a semi-synthetic fiber made by regenerating natural cellulose, typically from wood pulp, into a fiber that can be woven or knitted to imitate silk, wool, cotton or linen. The French scientist Hilaire de Chardonnet developed and patented the first commercial process for a nitrocellulose version of the fiber in 1885, earning him recognition as the father of rayon, while the English chemist Charles Frederick Cross and his collaborators Edward John Bevan and Clayton Beadle patented an alternative cellulose process in 1894 that they named viscose, after the highly viscous solution at its core; the British firm Courtaulds Fibres produced the first commercial viscose rayon in November 1905. Modern rayon is made chiefly by the viscose method, which dissolves cellulose using alkali and carbon disulfide before regenerating it into fiber, though the older cuprammonium method is now largely obsolete and a newer lyocell process, developed in 1982, dissolves cellulose in a less toxic amine oxide solvent.