Residual Pore Volume, Resilience, and Strength of Crosslinked Cotton Cellulose

Abstract

Cotton printcloth was treated with dimethyloldihydroxyethyleneurea to five add- on levels. Magnesium chloride hexahydrate was the crosslinking catalyst. A reverse gel permeation chromatographic technique was used to follow changes in pore size distribution. Columns were prepared by settling water slurries of the ground cotton in a conventional manner. Three series of water soluble solutes were used to study the elution characteristics of the unmodified and crosslinked samples. The solutes were series of oligomeric sugars, ethylene glycols, and glymes (ethylene glycol dimethyl ethers). Progressive losses in the accessible internal volume occurred with an increasing degree of crosslinking across the entire distribution of pore sizes. Increases in resilience were accompanied by the expected losses in strength, which in turn were associated with decreases in the accessible internal volume of the fibers. Decreases in internal volume occurred in small, medium, and large pores to comparable degrees, i.e., strength losses were not associated with the loss of a specific pore size.