Extender-based Enhancement For The Durable-press Finishing Of Cotton By BTCA

Generally regarded as the most promising formaldehyde-free alternative to replace the formaldehyde releasing DMDHEU(2D)resin in durable press finishing(DP)of cotton fabrics.1,2,3,4-butanetetracarboxylic acid(BTCA)gives the treated fabric excellent resilience and minimum discolorations.However,when compared with traditional DP finishing based on 2D or related N-methyloyl crosslinkers,finishing with polycarboxylic acids,including BTCA,is inevitably more demanding in terms of curing temperatures.Higher curing temperature is undesirable for the textile manufactures because not only does it push up the energy consumption,but also give rise to work safety concerns.From respect of a quality control,more intense heating also means severer damages to the cellulose structure,and likely a greater loss of mechanical strength of the treated textiles.Despite vast efforts of textile chemists trying to improve the BTCA-based DP finishing system,the afore mentioned issue has not been addressed,which prevents this greener finishing process from appreciable commercial success.Inspired by our previous work on polyol-extended citric acid(CA)DP finishing systems,this study set out to address the problem with BTCA system by enhancing the crosslinking efficiency with the addition of a so-called polyol extender.Additives vary in chemical structure and number of hydroxyl groups were screened based on their performance in enhancing the BTCA/ sodium hypophosphite(SHP)crosslinking system.Based on screening results,diglycol was chosen as the most effective for enhancing BTCA,initially.The effects of multiple experimental parameters on the finishing results,specifically WRA and retain of mechanical strength,were studied using single factor analysis.And the optimal conditions were determined to be 175 ?,3 min compared.Results from control experiments showed that the diglycol-added finishing increases the WRA by 13° on average.To obtain a pre-set WRA or DP-rating,using the diglycol-added formula allows either a 10 ?C turn-down of curing temperature,which help to preserve the mechanical strength of the treated fabrics.It is also worth to note that the resilience gained by fabrics from the diglycol-added finishing is “durable”,in that a DP degree of above 3.5 is maintained after 40 standard home-laundering cycles.Therefore,it was concluded by adding an appropriate amount of diglycol as the extender,the formaldehyde-free BTCA DP agent for cotton fabrics is enhanced appreciably to be used with lower curing temperature,shorter curing time,or low dosage.The results have implications for promoting the commercialization of BTCA-based DP finishing.