Abstract:

Due to the strength loss of cotton fabrics treated with 1, 2, 3, 4-butaneletracarboxylic acid (BTCA), different carbohydrates additives were added into the finishing bath to improve the anti-wrinkle properties of treated fabrics. The action mechanism was analyzed by molecular size calculation and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IT). The results show that glucose, sucrose and maltose can further increase the wrinkle recovery angle (WRA) of the treated fabric and reduce the fabric strength loss. Glucose shows the greatest effect on WRA increasing, and WRA of the treated fabrics reaches the maximum value of 260° when the dosage is 10.0 g/L, increasing by 22° compared with those without glucose. However, taking the whiteness index into consideration, maltose was selected as the most appropriate carbohydrate addictive here. According to the calculation of connolly solvent excluded volume and radius of carbohydrate additives and based on the diffusion equation, it can be concluded that the molecule with smaller molecular radirs can spread into the deeper section of the fiber and the effect on WRA improvement is more significant. FT-IR test shows that the mechanism of WRA enhancement is because of the covalent bridging through glucose between different BTCA moleclles just grafted onto the fibers.

Key words: anti-wrinkle finishing, carbohydrate additive, cotton fabric, 1, 2, 3, 4-butaneletracarboxylic acid, covalent bridging