Abstract
Hair fibres have been shaped via either a thermal route or via a chemical route. The time-relaxation transients of the shaped hairs in air, and in water, respectively, were evaluated. The collected data were kinetically modelled in order to reveal information about the rate controlling mechanism of the recovery process. Hair fibres were thermally shaped at different temperatures between heated plates and left to relax in an environment of controlled humidity and temperature. Different hair fibres were chemically shaped and left to relax in water of different controlled temperatures. Relaxation data were used for modelling the kinetics of the recovery processes by using exponential and logarithmic kinetic laws. The fitting of the models to the two sets of data has been checked by using the residual sum of squares for matching the proper model to each set of data. The processes of shaping and recovery were assimilated with a sequence of two successive quasi-chemical reactions, occurring at the used temperatures. Based on chemical and physical assumptions, the two groups of experiments were modelled by two different laws: an exponential law, suggesting a first-order process as the rate-determining step of the relaxation of thermally shaped fibres, and a logarithmic law, suggesting a slow relaxation, based on percolation theory, for the chemically shaped fibres. This allowed use of chemical kinetics tools for calculating the values of the activation energy in each case. The evaluated values of activation energy of the relaxation processes for both thermal and chemical shaping were found to be close to each other, in spite of the different methods of shaping. The kinetic analysis suggests that despite different reaction sequences occurring during the different shaping-relaxation processes, the rate-controlling mechanism that manages the recovery process is the same in all cases; and this process is proposed to be the thiol-disulphide reformation of intra-protein bonds inside hair.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
