Introducing covalent and ionic cross-linking into cotton through polycarboxylic acids and nano TiO2

Abstract

In this study, cationized cotton (CC) fabrics were treated with polycarboxylic acids and nano titanium dioxide (NTO) to produce fabrics with enhanced cross-linking property. The CC cross-linking with butane tetra carboxylic acid and citric acid in the presence of sodium hypophosphite catalyst and NTO co-catalyst under different curing methods were optimized using a statistical approach. The central composite design was used for variables based on Design of Expert software. The appropriate models to create optimum dry crease recovery angle were obtained for each condition. The results show that the covalent and ionic linkages lead to the cross-linking improvement of CC. X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy were also applied to indicate the NTO particles on the cotton surface with the size of nano particles and their crystallinity.