DURABLE PRESS TREATMENTS TO COTTON, VISCOSE, BAMBOO AND TENCEL FABRICS

Shabiya Thaseen

Abstract: Durable press finishing processes are generally used in the textile industry to produce wrinkle-free fabrics and garments. A durable press finishing agent forms covalent bonds with cellulosic hydroxyl groups, thus crosslinking the cellulose molecules. The cross linking of cellulose increase creases resistance of treated fabrics, and in the case of cotton, reduces its strength. Crease recovery angle (CRA) and tensile strength are the two most important parameters which are used to evaluate the performance of the crosslinked cellulosic fabrics and garments. In this study, we investigated the effect of DMDHEU resin on the crosslinking of cotton, bamboo, tencel and viscose fabrics. Three levels of resin concentration and four levels of curing temperature were employed for crosslinking treatments. The curing time was kept at 4 min in all the cases. The results show that the crease recovery angle has improved in all the cases and the improvement was found to be excellent for viscose, With the exception of cotton, in all the other cases, the tensile strength was unchanged. Thus resin treatment is strongly recommended for bamboo, viscose and tencel fabrics as it is found to improve wrinkle resistance without causing any deterioration in strength.

Keywords: COTTON, VISCOSE, BAMBOO

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2014.0308006