Advanced Materials Research Vol. 441

Abstract: This study presents an experimental investigation of the relationship between liquid surface tension and fabrics water retention in dehydration processes such as centrifuging, line drying and heat drying. Selected surfactants were used to prepare wash baths with different surface tension, and dehydrating experiments of cotton fabric after immersion in above bath were conducted. The results showed that lower surface tension is beneficial to reducing fabrics water retention by centrifuging and improving line drying efficiency and heat drying efficiency. It was assumed that water with low surface tension is easy to drop down or separate from fabric, thus improving the de-watering and drying efficiency.

Abstract: Cotton woven fabrics were treated with resin and hydrophobic agent for reducing the water retention value and improving the drying speed. The relationship among resin dosage, water retention value and drying speed were studied. The different fabrication methods of hydrophobic cottons were emphasized. When incorporating part of hydrophobic cottons in the fabric, the water retention value and drying speed of the fabric can be further improved, while the wearing comfort of the cotton fabrics can remain. By these treatments, the cotton apparels can be more easily washed and dehydrated and will consume less energy during home laundry and drying.

Abstract: Response surface methodology (RSM) was employed to optimize the washing conditions. A four-factorial three-level Box-Behnken partial orthogonal design was chosen to explain the washing process based on four critical factors, detergent concentration, lipase concentration, washing temperature and buffer pH. According to the responses from the experimental model, the effects of each variable were assessed and the interactions between variables were also determined. The experiment suggested that the optimal conditions for removal of olive oil from the cotton fabrics were 0.60g/L detergent, 4.37g/L lipase, washing temperature of 25.06 and buffer pH of 7.29. By actual washing confirmation, the wetting time of the washed fabric under the optimal condition was 0.51s. Home laundry could be conducted at low temperature with addition of lipase.

Abstract: This paper introduces a 3D imaging system designed for objective evaluation of fabric pilling. The system was aimed at using a pair of regular digital cameras to capture two side-by-side images of a pilling fabric without special lighting, and the robust calibration and stereo-matching algorithms to reconstruct high-fidelity 3D surfaces of fabric. The depth data provides the most relevant information for pilling segmentation and measurements. The outcome of the surface reconstruction is independent of fabric structures, colors and fiber contents. 3D measurements are useful for understanding pilling mechanisms in different abrasive treatments.

Abstract: The mass fraction of ten pieces of bi-component fabric was measured by both the conventional dissolution method (DSM) and a newly-designed carbonization retention rate method (CRM). The result showed that the error deviation between DSM and CRM is less than 5%, which is acceptable according to the standards of AATCC 20-2007 and FZ/T 01053-2007. The significance lies in that the time used for CRM test is considerably reduced with less than 2h, compared to DSM which requires more than 4 h.

Abstract: A detecting method for toxic flame retardant finishing agent tris-(2,3-dibromopropyl) -phosphate (TRIS for short) in textiles was studied. In the method, an acetonitrile ultrasound-assisted extraction process was included in sample pre-treatment, and HPLC/DAD was used in the separation and identification of extractives. After that, the conditions of pre-treatment and chromatograph were optimized. The results showed that the limit of detection (LOD) by this method (S/N10) is 1.0 mg/kg, its recovery ranged from 78.1% to 98.4%, and RSD of the precision test is 3.2%, of which all met the requirements for routine testing.

Abstract: A three-layer BP neural network model was established by relating subjective evaluation of fabric prickle level and 16 objective parameters from KES-FB system. The elastic gradient decrease method was adopted for network training to achieve the preset precision of the model which was later applied to fabric prickle level evaluation. Results from this method gave a considerably accuracy compared with actual subjective results which implied a compatibility between BP neural network and traditional subjective evaluation.

Abstract: The color appearance mode of yarn dyed woven fabric is different from that of color addition mixture and color subtraction mixture. In order to test and verify the differences of different color measuring methods applied to yarn dyed woven fabrics, 16 samples of yarn dyed woven fabrics made of the threads of different colors in different permutation and combination were tested by human eye evaluation, spectrophotometer and digital image processing system in this paper. The results showed that both the spectrophotometer and digital image processing methods were not accurately approximated to the results of human eye evaluation. Relatively, the results of digital image processing method were closer to that of the human eye evaluation. The work of this paper may contribute to promoting the color measurement in yarn dyed fabrics.

Abstract: The dissolution of the wool keratin has a history of several decades, but the effective dissolution method has not been found yet. In this article, a novel reducing agent TCEP (Tris (2-carboxyethyl) phosphine) was used, which has a strong ability for selective reduction of disulfide bonds. With a joint use of sodium bisulfite, the wool dissolution has a great advantage in wool processing compared with previous methods; Through amino acid analysis, it was found that the content of the cysteine decreased significantly when using the TCEP as reducing agent, and the other amino acids did not change significantly, indicating that TCEP has high selectivity for reduction of disulfide bonds, and plays a significant role to maintain the molecular weight of keratin. The efficiency of dissolution was greatly improved; dissolution time was 4h, dissolution rate was 93.6%, keratin concentration was 10%, the yield of keratin with the molecular weight more than 3500 and more than 8000 were 80% and 72% respectively. By using SDS-PAGE, we can get that the main molecular weight of the keratin was 14000-20000.

Abstract: The alkaline hydrolysis of polyester fabric in NaOH solution in the presence of several 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium bromine ionic liquids (ILs), CnMImBr (n=8, 12, 14, 16) was examined in comparison to the use of cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) as an accelerant. The weight loss of polyester fabric was found to be greatly dependent on the concentrations of ILs and the length of alkyl groups in ILs. C₁₄MImBr and C₁₆MImBr exhibited good catalytic actions. The use of C₁₆MImBr as an accelerator could endow polyester fabrics with slightly higher weight loss in comparison with CTAB. In the presence of C₁₆MImBr, the activation energy of polyester hydrolysis reaction was slightly higher than that for the use of C₁₄MImBr as a catalyst. In summary, the C_nMImBr with long carbon chain can be employed as the novel accelerator for the weight reduction process of polyester fabrics.