Corn Distillers Dried Grains as Sustainable and Environmentally Friendly Warp Sizing Agents

Abstract

Corn distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) were used as sustainable and environmentally friendly warp sizing agents for cotton, polyester, and polyester/cotton (P/C) in an effort to find potential substitutes for starch and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA). Sizing is an essential textile process to reduce warp breakages and protect the yarns from the stress, strain, and abrasion experienced during weaving. Starch-based sizes are inexpensive and provide good sizing performance on cotton, but starch sizes are brittle and cause shedding during weaving, are unstable and difficult to desize, and are also not suitable for sizing synthetic fibers and their blends. PVA provides excellent sizing performance on synthetic fibers and their blends but is expensive and does not degrade in textile effluent treatment plants. DDGS is a widely available and inexpensive ($100–$125/ton) coproduct that contains proteins and carbohydrates. In this research, DDGS was pretreated with alkali, and the extractants obtained were used to size cotton, polyester and P/C rovings, and fabrics. The influence of extraction conditions, composition of the extractants, and sizing conditions on the cohesiveness, abrasion resistance, and biodegradation were studied in comparison to starch and poly(vinyl alcohol). The DDG size provided a similar increase in Roving strength, better abrasion resistance, and substantially higher biodegradation than PVA.