Core practical 8

Task 1 Research:
Retting is a process employing the action of micro-organisms and moisture on plants to dissolve
or rot away much of the cellular tissues and pectins surrounding bast-fibre bundles, and so
facilitating separation of the fibre from the stem. (www.wikipedia.com)

When flax is immersed in water the straw becomes softened and the soluble constituents,
which include carbohydrates, glucosides and nitrogen compounds, are extracted.
(www.nature.com)

There are five types of retting processes, namely dew, water, mechanical, enzymatic and
chemical retting. Traditional methods, dew and water retting, rely on biological activity of
microorganisms from the soil and are the most commonly used processes.
(www.researchgate.net)

Task 2 Results:

Length of Mass taken

fibre (cm) to break
fibre(g)
10 200
10 300
10 260
15 720
15 1090
15 860
20 1050
20 1120
20 1130
Task 3 Analysis of Results:

1. Submitted separately

2. As the length of the fibre gets longer, the strength of the fibre increases and it takes more
mass to break through it.

Task 4 Questions:
1. Use your graph to predict the tensile strength of a celery string that is 12.5cm long.

Using the graph, it would take at least 500-600 grams so break the string do the tensile strength
would be 600/12.5= 48 Ncm2

2. Suggest one way in which this procedure could be modified to provide more accurate data.

Instead of using 100 gram weights, it’ll be more accurate to use 50 gram weights to get a more
precise amount of mass it takes to break the fibre string. There could also be various sizes of
strings for each cm i.e 10,12,14,16 etc so that there are more fibre strings to use and we can get
a more accurate measurement so that even estimates can be close enough just by analyzing the
data.

3. Identify one variable in this investigation that was not controlled and describe how this
may have affected the data obtained.

The mass of the weighing pan itself was not controlled or included in the data. This could have
affected the data obtained as it could have altered the final mass.