How does my clothes dryer’s lint catcher get so full, yet my clothes don’t fall apart? Where does all this lint come from?
In: Chemistry
A lot of what you see there is cotton. Most fabrics will generate some lint, but cotton makes a lot. When it is washed, the fibers tend to swell up. When you run the item through the dryer, especially with other cotton things, those swollen fibers rub up against each other and scrape off bits of the material. The stuff that gets scraped off is lint.
Among other things, this can make the clothes feel rougher. That’s why we use fabric softener, it coats those fibers, lubricating them in a way. The coating flakes off in the dryer instead of the fibers themselves, so they are softer and last longer. Ever notice how when you use too much softener, the fabric feels kind of odd and waxy? That’s why.
The fact that a lot of lint is cotton is one big reason to make sure you clear your lint trap regularly and that your vents are clear. When cotton reaches a certain surface temperature, it begins to decompose, and decomposing cotton actually generates MORE heat! Now imagine a wad of tightly packed cotton, already hot from the dryer, decomposing and generating MORE heat, with nowhere for that heat to go. The temperature of that wad rises until it reaches what is called the *critical surface temperature* – at which point it ignites!
On top of the comments I’m seeing here, your clothes pick up bits of chaff, linen, and fiber that aren’t part of them : pet hair, your hair, carpet fiber, lint from this like scarves and hats in the winter that comes off even between washings, bits of fiber in the dust around us, etc. So not 100% of what accumulates in the lint filter is your clothes wearing away.
(Probably skin cells, too.)
They do fall apart, eventually. If you keep your clothes for long enough, they get thin and wear out even if you avoid damaging them.
Ah, but the clothes do fall apart; it just takes a lot of washings. Ever notice how old t-shirts become threadbare? That’s not so much from wearing them, but from the repeated washings. Your washing machine slowly converts your t-shirts to lint.
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