Response of Cottons to Chemical Treatments Part I: Fiber Mercerization and Urea Treatments 1

Abstract

In order to determine whether different cottons respond differently to identical chemi cal treatments, single fibers from six carefully selected cottons were subjected to four treatments under a tensile force of 0.1 g. The treatments which were investigated were water, 10 M urea, mercerization, and a combination of 10 M urea and mercerization. The initial, nondestructive portion of the fiber stress-strain curve was evaluated for each fiber prior to the treatment and the entire stress-strain curve was evaluated after the chemical treatments. Thus it was possible to determine the changes in fiber properties on a fiber-to-fiber basis at least as far as the non-rupture fiber characteristics are con cerned. Fiber length, elastic modulus, breaking extension, and breaking tenacity were considered in this research. Many changes in fiber properties due to the chemical treat ments could be interpreted in terms of fibrillar orientation of the six cottons as estimated by the X-ray angle. Under mercerizing conditions, it was observed that cottons with high X-ray angles underwent greater increases in fiber length and elastic modulus and greater decreases in fiber breaking extension than did cottons with low X-ray angles. Changes in fiber breaking tenacity could not be related to known structural features of the cotton fiber.