Causticization and Anticrease finish in Continuous Process

Abstract

The adsorption of cotton fabric is improved by treatment with sodium hydroxide, which is called causticization method. In the method, it is necessary to wash off unreacted sodium hydroxide from the fabric and then neutralize with some acids, such as acetic acid and sulphuric acid. In this research, citric acid was used to neutralize causticized fabric and anticrease finish on cotton fabric. The citric acid is non-formaldehyde anticrease finishing agent. So that the two processes, i.e. causticization and anticrease finish, could be combined into one continuous process. And it was found that the causticization would improve some properties of anticrease fabric with citric acid. From the result, it showed that the anticrease fabric had lower tensile strength than untreated fabric. The anticrease finish with 6% w/v citric acid had higher tensile strength than 8 and 10 % w/v, respectively. When concentration of acid, curing temperature and time were higher, wrinkle recovery angle would be increased. The effect of catalyst showed that anticrease finish using sodium hypophosphite as catalyst was higher wrinkle recovery angle and tensile strength than non-catalyst finish. The causticization before anticrease finish would increase tensile strength and whiteness of fabric when compared to only anticrease finish. The effect of catalyst showed that at low acid concentration, increasing of catalyst didn’t have effect on tensile strength and wrinkle recovery angle value. At higher acid concentration, trend of tensile strength was decreased whereas wrinkle recovery angle increased and slightly effect on whiteness.