Development of a Process to Continuously Mercerise Loose-Stock Cotton

Abstract:

Cotton has traditionally been mercerised as hanks of yarn or as open-width fabrics, but commercial methods to mercerise loose stock directly after ginning have been limited. Arnold and Rippon [1,2] produced continuous lengths of fully mercerised sliver with increased fibre strength, enhanced dye-uptake, improved surface lustre, without fibre shrinkage. Not only did the method prevent shrinkage, but fibres could be stretched by as much as 4% and then stably set. The disadvantage of this method was that fibre had to be fully processed to sliver form.An improved prototype machine has now been successfully developed to continuously mercerise ginned loose stock. Testing has confirmed that the output fibres are mercerised along their full lengths and have higher tenacity compared with the un-mercerised Control. Fibre lengths have also been maintained, indicating that the shrinkage normally caused by slack mercerising has been prevented. Fibre dyeability is comparable with that of slack-mercerised samples but better than the un-mercerised Control. The improved lustre expected for fibre mercerised under tension has also been confirmed. The production rate of the process can be readily improved, and the prototype expanded in size to increase output.

• Periodical: Materials Science Forum (Volume 1117)
• Pages: 73-80
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/p-Ph2Mr9
• Online since: March 2024
• Authors: Lyndon Arnold*, Rajiv Padhye
• Keywords: Continuous Processing, Cotton, Loose-Stock, Mercerising, Sodium Hydroxide

References

[1] Arnold L.N. & Rippon J.A., (2010) "Continuous Mercerisation of Cotton Sliver Under Tension Offers the Potential for New Products" The International Dyer October 2010, pp.12-16

[2] Arnold L.N. & Rippon J., (2003) International Patent WO 2004050979 A1 "Mercerisation of cellulosic fibres", November (2003)

[3] Clibbens D.A., (1923) "XII The Mercerisation of Cotton – A review of the literature", Jnl. Text. Inst. Transactions 14 (8), pp. T217-T249. Published online 11 December 2008.

DOI: 10.1080/19447022308661249

[4] Hotani M., (1984) "Process and Apparatus for the Mercerisation of Slivers", US Patent 1982000412521, (July 1984).

[5] Hamada H., (1996) "Continuous Mercerisation for Sliver", JP Patent JP8035164 (February 1996)

[6] Kawaguchi Katsushi, (1990) "Mercerising of Roving" – 3 Japanese Patents with same title: JP2251674 (October 1990), JP2289167 (November 1990), JP2289168 .

[7] Leung Si Ki, (1991) "Mercerisation of Fibres", GB2236770 (April 1991)

[8] Pandey S.N. and Nair P., (1987) "Mercerised and Cross-linked Cotton Yarns – Part II: Effect of Stretching during Mercerisation on Physical Properties and Degradation of Cross-linked Yarns", Text. Res. Jnl. 57, pp.532-538.

DOI: 10.1177/004051758705700908

[9] Zeronian S.H., Kawabata H. and Alger K.W., (1990) "Factors Affecting the Tensile Properties of Non-mercerised and Mercerised Cotton Fibres" Text. Res. Jnl. 60, pp.179-183.

DOI: 10.1177/004051759006000310

[10] Arnold L.N., "A Rotating Light Table to Measure the Lustre of Fibres and Fabrics" Proceedings of the13th AUTEX World Textile Conference, pp.1-6; AUTEX 2013 (Dresden, Germany, 22/05/2013 - 24/05/2013)