Hi Raquel - I have no definite answer but the 91-94% (the residual part is mostly water) you find will most likely refer to cleaned raw cotton from the cotton boll prior textil fabrication. Most industrial sources state "pure" or "almost pure". To check if there is some  water trapped in the cloth you could try to put your cloth sample for 6-8 hours (not overnight,, just to reduce the fire hazard) in a 110 C heating oven, the weight difference before/after indicates that you have some water in the cloth (which means you have further heat until the weight stabilizes). You can use this weight then to get closer to the real cellobiose contents of the cloth. Good luck!   

Dear Josef,

Thanks for your answer! I will try to do so and I guess that will be a good proxy for my calculations.

Have a nice weekend!

Although the structure and composition of the cell walls of plants vary widely, the cellulose content usually accounts for 35–50 % of dry weight and, peculiarly, almost 100 % for cotton.In most conditions, the cellulose is wrapped by hemicellulose (dry matter accounting for 20–35 %) and lignin (dry matter accounting for 5–30 %). Cellulose is a linear homopolymer composed of D-glucopyranose units linked by

“-1,4-glycosidic bonds. It mainly contains carbon (44.44 %), hydrogen (6.17 %),

and oxygen (49.39 %).

Dear Singh, 

Thanks for your answer. I will try to apply both methods in the coming weeks. 

Hi Raquel, can you provide the full citation for Slocum et al. (2009) that you mention above ?

thanks, Eric

Dear Eric,

This is the article cited above:

Slocum MG, Roberts J, Mendelssohn IA. 2009. Artist canvas as a new standard for the cotton-strip assay. Journal of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science 172:71–74.

If you are interested in standardized methods for assessing decomposition, this one might be also useful for you:

Keuskamp J a., Dingemans BJJ, Lehtinen T, Sarneel JM, Hefting MM. 2013. Tea Bag Index: a novel approach to collect uniform decomposition data across ecosystems. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 4:1070–1075.

For my experience, it is a more integrative approach which required less specialized equipment and provides more detailed data. It is new approach which is expanding worldwide nowadays (see also Blue Carbon Lab or Tea Time 4 Science).

I hope it was useful! Any doubt, do not hesitate to contact me!

Raquel