Rayon, artificial textile material composed of regenerated and purified cellulose derived from plant sources. Developed in the late 19th century as a substitute for silk, rayon was the first man-made fibre.

Rayon is described as a regenerated fibre because the cellulose, obtained from soft woods or from the short fibres (linters) that adhere to cottonseeds, is converted to a liquid compound, squeezed through tiny holes in a device called a spinnerette, and then converted back to cellulose in the form of fibre. The first practical steps toward producing such a fibre were represented by attempts to work with the highly flammable compound nitrocellulose, produced by treating cotton cellulose with nitric acid. In 1884 and 1885 in London, British chemist Sir Joseph Wilson Swan exhibited fibres made of nitrocellulose that had been treated with chemicals in order to change the material back to nonflammable cellulose. Swan did not follow up the demonstrations of his invention; thus, the development of rayon as a practical fibre really began in France, with the work of industrial chemist Hilaire Bernigaud, comte de Chardonnet, who is frequently called the father of the rayon industry. In 1889 Chardonnet exhibited fibres made by squeezing a nitrocellulose solution through spinnerettes, hardening the emerging jets in warm air, and then reconverting them to cellulose by chemical treatment. Manufacture of “Chardonnet silk,” an early type of rayon and the first commercially produced man-made fibre, began in 1891 at a factory in Besançon.

Although Chardonnet’s process was simple and involved a minimum of waste, it was slow, expensive, and potentially dangerous. In 1890 another French chemist, Louis-Henri Despeissis, patented a process for making fibres from cuprammonium rayon. This material was based on the Swiss chemist Matthias Eduard Schweizer’s discovery in 1857 that cellulose could be dissolved in a solution of coppersalts and ammonia and, after extrusion, be regenerated in a coagulating bath. In 1908 the German textile firm J.-P. Bemberg began to produce cuprammonium rayon as Bemberg silk.   A third type of cellulose—and the type most commonly made today—was produced in 1891 from a syrupy, yellow, sulfurous-smelling liquid that three British chemists—Charles F. Cross, Edward J. Bevan, and Clayton Beadle—discovered by dissolving cellulose xanthate in dilute sodium hydroxide. By 1905 the British silk firm Samuel Courtauld & Company was producing this fibre, which became known as viscose rayon (or simply viscose). In 1911 the American Viscose Corporation began production in the United States.

Modern manufacture of viscose rayon has not changed in its essentials. Purified cellulose is first treated with caustic soda (sodium hydroxide). After the alkali cellulose has aged, carbon disulfide is added to form cellulose xanthate, which is dissolved in sodium hydroxide. This viscous solution (viscose) is forced through spinnerettes. Emerging from the holes, the jets enter a coagulating bath of acids and salts in which they are reconverted to cellulose and coagulated to form a solid filament. The filament may be manipulated and modified during the manufacturing process to control lustre, strength, elongation, filament size, and cross section as demanded.  Rayon has many properties similar to cotton and can also be made to resemble silk. Readily penetrated by water, the fibre swells and loses strength when wet. It can be washed in mild alkaline solutions but loses strength if subjected to harsh alkalies. Common dry-cleaning solvents are not harmful. In apparel, rayon is used alone or in blends with other fibres in applications where cotton is normally used. High-strength rayon, produced by drawing (stretching) the filaments during manufacture to induce crystallization of the cellulose polymers, is made into tire cord for use in automobile tires. Rayon is also blended with wood pulp in papermaking.

Rayon remains an important fibre, although production has declined in industrial countries because of environmental concerns connected with the release of carbon disulfide into the air and salt by-products into streams. Such concerns have led to the development of new types of rayon such as lyocell. Lyocell is produced by dissolving wood cellulose in a nontoxic amine oxide solvent, which is washed from the regenerated fibres and recovered for reuse.