Low Temperature Bleaching (LTB): A Sustainable Wet Processing Technique

Abstract

Bleaching is the first step of textile wet processing. For successful dyeing in the subsequent process; proper bleaching is a must that’s why bleaching is called the heart of textile wet processing like carding is the heart of spinning. commercial bleaching is done all over the world generally in boiling or near boiling temperature that is 98°C to 105°C. But in this case the cellulose loses its strength significantly as the degree of polymerization (DP)decreases due to breakage of cellulose chain. To overcome this problem new technology has developed where bleaching can be done at 70°C. In our study we found that there are several advantages of low temperature bleaching over high temperature bleaching-lower damage of cellulose chain, less processing time, lower energy consumption, lower amount of dyes consumption to produce same depth, lower amount of auxiliaries needed. No negative effect on overall quality test results. So it is observed that low temperature bleaching has outstanding advantages over high temperature.