Chemical and property modification of silk with dibasic acid anhydrides

Abstract

AbstractIn an attempt to provide information for improving silk fiber and fabric properties including crease recovery and yellowing, silk modification has been studied by using succinic and glutaric anhydrides. Glutarylation has been found to protect silk fibers from yellowing caused by the high energy radiation and to be more effective on increasing the crease proofing. The silk fabrics did not reduce the tensile properties such as strength and elongation at break even after the chemical modification with dibasic acid anhydrides. Thermal properties of the fibers remained unchanged in spite of the succinylation or glutarylation. From all the considerations of the survey of dye uptake, it would seem that the ester crosslinks are easily formed much more by the glutarylation than by the succinylation. The recovery values and yellowness indices of the modified silk fabrics and the measuring results of thermal and thermomechanical properties are explicable, taking into account of the different reactivity of the functional groups induced by the chemical modification with the dibasic acid anhydrides.