Treatment of Cotton Fiber with Newly Synthesized UV Absorbers: Optimization and Protection Efficiency

Abstract

Two new hetrofunctional triazine based UV absorbers (1a, 2a) were theoretically and experimentally synthesized at our previous work. In the current investigation, these absorbers were applied to woven cotton fabric via the exhaust method of dyeing, that increase the ultraviolet protection factor of fabric by keeping the quantity of finishing chemicals low to combat with the environmental problem. Therefore, a statistical tool central composite rotatable design (CCRD) of response surface methodology (RSM) was selected for process modeling. The CCRD was applied to study the effect of three process variables (salt, alkali and temperature) on the two responses (exhaustion and fixation percentage) and for the evaluation of the interactive effects of the three process variables. The results show that the applied quadratic model was highly significant and fit to the experimental data for both the UV absorbers (1a and 2a). The values of optimized parameters for CCRD, in cotton finishing with newly synthesized UV absorbers (1a and 2a) were respectively as follows; temperature of 61.91 oC, dose of salt 34.28 g/l and dose of alkali 19.82 g/l. Under these conditions, 77.56 (±3) and 76.08 (±3) exhaustion and 81.12 (±3) and 79.23 (±3) fixation percentage obtained for UV absorbers 1a and 2a respectively. The ultraviolet protection factor (UPF) of treated cotton fabric under optimized conditions appeared in very good range. The results reveal that the applied statistical design economically and effectively predicts the optimized conditions of finishing of cotton by keeping the number of experiments low than the one factor at a time method, that ultimately reduce water pollution and wastage of resources.