Abstract
The kinetics, activation energy, and mechanism of esterification of cotton by mixed polycarboxylic acids, namely, 1,2,3,4-butanetetracarboxylic acid (BTCA) and citric acid (CA), were studied during the curing process of cotton fibers in comparison with the esterification by BTCA alone. The reaction rates of these two polycarboxylic acid finishing systems under different temperatures and the dependency of their reaction rate constants on temperature were studied. Consequently, in the temperature range from 120°C to 180°C, the activation energy of the mixed polycarboxylic acids (BTCA+CA) was obtained as Ea=40.7 kJ/mol, which was slightly lower than that for the BTCA finishing system. The reaction occurring between the carboxylic acid group of BTCA and the hydroxyl group of CA was proposed. To confirm and prove the speculation, experiments were conducted to investigate the changes in wrinkle recovery angle and tensile strength retention by changing the concentration of both the single polycarboxylic acid and mixed polycarboxylic acids. The results show that, besides esterification of cotton fibers, citric acid probably functioned as an extender in the curing process, when it was combined with BTCA.
Highlights
Cotton is a natural cellulose fiber that is widely used in apparel textiles because of its desirable properties like softness, comfort, warmth, and hygroscopic nature
In order to determine the curing time and temperature range for calculating the kinetics data of esterification, the amount of carboxylic acid consumed in the esterification process during the curing step under different temperatures was measured by the calcium acetate titration as shown in Figures 1 and 2
We saw that the consumption of carboxylic acids increased as the curing time prolonged, and a higher amount of carboxylic acids was consumed under higher temperatures for both the finishing systems
Summary
Cotton is a natural cellulose fiber that is widely used in apparel textiles because of its desirable properties like softness, comfort, warmth, and hygroscopic nature. This drawback greatly restricts its practical applications To overcome this problem and endow the cotton fabric with antiwrinkle property, cross-linking of cellulose chains (to inhibit their movement) using appropriate resins or polymers has proved to be effective [2,3,4,5,6]. Since the 1990s, extensive efforts [4, 5, 12,13,14,15,16] have been made to develop formaldehyde-free, durable, and press finishing agents Polycarboxylic acids such as 1,2,3,4-butanetetracarboxylic acid (BTCA) and citric acid (CA) displayed interesting potential as cross-linking agents for substrates containing hydroxyl groups, including cellulose, starch, and chitosan [15, 17,18,19,20]. The reaction rate constant and activation, as well as the possible mechanism, are proposed
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