Study on the Relationship between Accelerated Aging, Color Characterization and Properties of Natural Fibers

Abstract

ABSTRACT Fiber yellowing is an important indicator to distinguish the quality of natural fibers. Natural fibers such as cotton, kenaf and wool are subjected to production conditions such as UV light, heat and acid-base treatment during their growth and processing. These will affect the fiber appearance and performance. In this paper, the laboratory accelerated aging method was used to replace the natural aging of the fabric, and the color characteristics of the aged fiber are quantitatively analyzed through the color measurement system and image processing method. Meanwhile, the property changes of fiber composition destruction and fiber strength decrease were also measured and compared by infrared spectrum analysis and monofilament tensile test. Thermal aging destroyed the surface composition of cotton and kenaf fibers, thereby reducing the mechanical properties of fibers. Among them, the strength of kenaf fiber was reduced to 1/2 of the original after 8 hours of thermal aging. On the contrary UV aging damaged wool fiber even more. The most obvious result was that after 8 hours of UV irradiation, the strength of silk fiber dropped to 1/3 of its original strength. The mechanical properties of kenaf fiber were affected more obviously by acid and alkali than protein fiber.