Synthesis And Application Of A Leveling Agent In Wool Dyeing

According to the leveling mechanism when the leveling agent is used for wool dyeing, a new leveling agent W which consists of cationic, anionic and nonionic groups, respectively was designed and synthesized in the paper. The effect of conditions containing the mass ratio of raw materials, the reaction time, the pH and reaction temperature on the synthesis was studied in detail. Concretely, the amine value, the epoxy value, as well as the content of anion active substances during the synthesis processes were measured. Accordingly, the optimal technique for synthesis of the leveling agent W was achieved. Thereafter, the physical, chemical and even application properties of the final product-leveling agent W were studied. And its molecular structure was confirmed by the fourier translation infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) characterization.The experimental results showed that the optimum technique for the reaction between the primary amine and the epoxy polyoxyethylene was as follows.The mol ratio of primary amine to epoxy polyoxyethylene was 1:1, the reaction temperature was 100℃, the pH value was 9-10 and the reaction time was 10 hours. And the optimum technique for the sulfonation reaction was as follows. The mol ratio of sulfamic acid to the product from the first step was 1:1, the pH value was about 7, the reaction temperature was 70℃and the time of the reaction was 6 hours.The results from the physical and chemical performance tests to the leveling agent W showed that its stabilities to acid, alkali, salt heating were good, and it also had good centrifugal stability. When the pH value was below 6.5 in the solution, it appeared the nature of anion-cation.The leveling agent W was applied for dyeing experiments during which the normal wool dyeing techniques for acid dyes and reactive dyes were adopted. The optimum dose of the leveling agent W during the wool dyeing process using acid dyes or reactive dyes was determined as 1g/L. Moreover, the dyeing rate curves, dye- transferring properties and fixation rates when the leveling agent W was used during the wool dyeing processes were measured. It was manifested that the leveling agent W synthesized in this paper had the similar leveling effects to the commercial available leveling agent Albegal B.On the basis of the studies mentioned above, the final product was first applied in Shenzhen Advanced Hualian Fine Chemical Co.,Ltd for commercial use. Currently it has been produced for industrial research and use.