Curauá
| Curauá | ||||||||||||
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Curauá ( Ananas lucidus ) |
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| Pineapple lucidus | ||||||||||||
| GSMill. |
Curauá ( Ananas lucidus ) is a species of the bromeliad family (Bromeliaceae) from whose leaves fibers are obtained. In some scientific texts the species is also called A. erectifolius . This name is no longer used today, but is still considered a synonym. There are other names for the plant in the respective dialects. Among other things, pitte , curaua , curaguata or curaua de Amazonia .
description
Curauá has upright leaves up to 1 m long and 35 mm wide that are armed with a needle-shaped tip. Ananas lucidus differs from Ananas ananassoides only in the absence of lateral leaf spines. The fruits are small (up to 12 cm) and, due to the high fiber content, not edible. Like the fruits of most pineapples, they stand on long shafts. The petals are about 17 mm long and purple in color.
use
Above all, the fiber-rich leaves of A. lucidus are processed and used industrially .
Their suitability for the production of fiber composite materials is rated as very promising. Curauá has so far only been grown on a larger scale in the vicinity of the Brazilian city of Santarém . The industrial use of the fiber is only just beginning. The Sabic company has developed a composite material made of polyamide- 6 nylon with 20% curauá reinforcement. According to the company, this fiber composite material with the designation "LNP Thermocomp PX07444" could replace glass fiber reinforced nylon in certain applications in the automotive interior.
The species has been cultivated in northern South America and the West Indies since pre-Columbian times. It occurs almost exclusively in culture. In addition to the fibers, the inflorescences are also used for decorative purposes. The fibers are or were used for fishing nets and ropes.
Sources and further information
- Claudete de Fátima Ruas, Paulo Maurício Ruas, Jos Renato S. Cabral: Assessment of genetic relatedness of the genera Ananas and Pseudananas confirmed by RAPD markers . Euphytica 119, 2001, pp. 245-252.
- www.cgiar.org ( Memento of January 6, 2003 in the Internet Archive )
- Duane Phillip Bartholomew, Robert E. Paull, Kenneth G. Rohrbach: The Pineapple - botany, production and uses . CABI, 2003
Individual evidence
- ↑ The curagua (Ananas lucidus, Bromeliaceae) crop in Venezuela
- ↑ Bio-based composites give customers greatly expanded options ( Memento from July 10, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
- ^ MF Duval, JL Noyer, X. Perrier, G. Coppens d'Eeckenbrugge, P. Hamon: Molecular diversity in pineapple assessed by RFLP markers . Theor Appl Genet (2001) 102: 83-90
literature
- Doris Behrens: Curaua fiber - a plant fiber as a construction material? Investigations into the cultivation of the Brazilian bromeliad species Curaua (Ananas lucidus Miller) and examination of the leaf fibers with regard to their technological usability. (Series of publications in agricultural science; 5). Diss. Hohenheim. Köster Verlag, Berlin 1999. ISBN 3895743437
- Nils Berger: Agronomic optimization of the cultivation of Curauá (Ananas lucidus Miller) in the eastern Amazon region of Brazil . Tropical Agriculture Volume 15 = Advances in Crop Research 5. Margraf Verlag 2004. ISBN 3-8236-1413-4
