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http://trj.sagepub.com/Textile Research Journal

http://trj.sagepub.com/content/59/1/45The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/004051758905900106

1989 59: 45Textile Research JournalChristopher M. Carr and Philip J. WeedallEffect of Solvent Treatments on the Handle of Wool Fabrics

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ing-force rate constant. The simplified rate equationsare 38-40, and the corresponding diagnostic formulasare Equations 38 *-40 *.

Literature Cited

1.Anthony, W. S., and Columbus, E. P., Principles ofDust

Removal in Gin Machinery: Theoretical and Measured,Trans.ASME 107, 288-294 (1985).

2. Capellos, C., and Bielski, B. H. J., "Kinetic Systems,"Robert Krieger Publishing Co., 1980.

3. Columbus, E. P., andAnthony, W. S., Preliminary In-

vestigation of the Removal of Fine Dust With Lint

Cleaners, in "Proc. 6th Cotton Dust Res. Conf., BeltwideCotton Prod. Res. Conf.," P. J. Wakelyn, Ed., National

Cotton CouncilAm., Memphis, TN, 1982, pp. 71-73.

4. Ensminger, D., Montalvo, J. G., Jr., and Baril,A., Jr.,

Application of Ultrasonic Forces to Remove Dust From

Cotton, Trans.ASME106,242-246 (1984).

5. Griffin,A. C., Jr., and Bargeron, J. D., Evaluation ofMultiple Stage Lint and Milling Cleaning for ControllingCotton Dust Levels in Cardrooms, USDA MarketingReport No. 1110, 1980.

6. Mangialardi, G. J.,A Research Report on Lint Cleaning,Cotton Gin Oil Mill Press ( November 30, 1968).

7. Mangialardi, G. J., and McCaskill, O. L., Effects of Grid-Bar Wash on Efficiency of Lint Cleaners and Fiber Qual-

ity on Cotton, USDA,ARS, Production Research ReportNo. 97, 1967.

8. Montalvo, J. G., Jr.,Adhesion of Dust on Cotton, in"Proc. 5th Cotton Dust Res. Conf., Beltwide CottonProd. Res. Conf.," P. J. Wakelyn, Ed., National CottonCouncilAm., Memphis, TN, 1981, pp. 53-54.

9. Montalvo, J. G., Jr.,Aerodynamic Removal of Native

Dust from Cotton, Textile Res. J. 57, 133-141 (1987).10. Montalvo, J. G., Jr., Ed., Cotton Dust: Controlling an

Occupational Health Hazard,ACS Symposium Series

189,American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C.,1982.

11. Montalvo, J. G., Jr., Baril,A., Jr., and Weller, H. W.,

Jr., TheoreticalApproach to Dust Removal from Pre-

baled Cotton, in "Proc. 6th Cotton Dust Res. Conf.,

Beltwide Cotton Prod. Res. Conf.," P. J. Wakelyn, Ed.,

National Cotton CouncilAm., Memphis. TN, 1982, pp.74-77.

12. Montalvo, J. G., Jr., and Rousselle, M. A.. Modeling

Total Particulate Measurement in Cotton, Textile Res.J.57, 10-19 (1982).

13. Montalvo, J. G., Jr., Thibodeaux, D. P.. and Evans.J. P.,Aerodynamic Force Required to Detach Bract and

Leaf Dust Dispersed on Cotton,Am. Ind. Hyg.Assoc.J. 45, 833-840 (1984).

Manuscript received November 4, 1986. acceptedApn! b. 1988.

Effect of Solvent Treatments on the Handle of Wool Fabrics

CHRISTOPHER M. CARRAND PHILIP J. WEEDALL

Scottish College of Textiles, Netherdale, Galashiels, Scotland

ABSTRACT

The KES-F system has been used to investigate solvent treatments of wool, in par-ticular dry cleaning and solvent scouring. Solvent scouring is compared to similar

aqueous treatments by both objective and subjective measurements.

Solvent processing of wool textiles is relatively lim-

ited, the main application being the dry cleaning of

fabrics with perchloroethylene.Other

potential growthareas for the use of solvents in processing are milling,

dyeing, carbonization, and scouring [ 8 ].

In this study the effects of dry cleaning and solvent

scouring on the handle of wool fabrics are comparedwith similar

aqueous processesusing the KFS-F ap-

paratus ( Kawabata evaluatidn system for fabncs) [4].

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Experimental

DRY CLEANING

The fabric was 100% wool worsted ( 36S g/ m 2 ),classified as mens winter suiting. To simulate drycleaning, the samples were treated with perchloroeth-

yleneor

perchloroethylene/ methanol ( 9:1 ) ina

Jeffreysrotadyer for 30 minutes at a wool : liquor ratio of 1:5and at a temperature of 30 or 50*C.

The fabric was dried for 15 minutes at 80C and

finally steam pressed using a Hoffman type press. Thepressing procedure was 30 seconds steam with the presslocked, followed by 10 seconds vacuum. To investigatethe effect of extended steaming, fabrics were alsosteamed for 1, 5, and 10 minutes.The dry cleaning cycle was repeated up to four times,

fresh solvent being used with each cycle.After eachtreatment, the samples were conditioned for one week,and the mechanical properties of the fabrics were mea-sured using the KES-F apparatus.

SCOURING

The fabric was a 100% wool twill (297 g / m 2 ) . Theloom state fabric was scoured under three conditions:(a) In 0.2 g/1 sodium carbonate (anhydrous), 10 g/1Lissapol N at 50C for 10 minutes, wool: liquor ratioof 1:S0, rinsed in warm water, hydroextracted, anddried. (b) In 0.2 g / sodium carbonate (anhydrous),

10 g/1 soap flakes at 50C for 10 minutes, wool: liquorratio of 1:50, rinsed in warm water, hydroextractedand dried. ( c ) In perchloroethylene at 20C for 5 min-utes and tumble dried at 60C. (Scouring done underindustrial conditions.)

KAWABATA EVALUATION SYSTEM

Jhe apparatus [ 4] consists offour instruments mea-

suring the shear, tensile, bending, surface, and com-pressional properties of the fabric. The parametersmeasured (Table I) are related to the fabric handle andcan be converted into primary and total hand .valuesfor the fabric by means ofequations developed by Pro-fessor Kawabata. Test samples were 20 X 20 cm in thewarp and weft directions.

For the subjective assessment, eight judges madequalitative assessments of the stiffness, softness, andsmoothness of the fabrics. The ranking procedure ofeach sample was determined using a paired comparisonmethod [ 3 ] .

Results and Discussion .

The process of dry cleaning consists of two stages,an initial solvent treatment followed by a steam press,

TABLE I. Mechanical parameters measured

by the KES-F apparatus.

so it is important to determine the effect of the pressingon the. overall dry cleaned fabric. In this study, steam

pressing the wool produces a thinner and stiffer fabric(Table II ), these changes being illustrated by the in-creases in the mechanical properties B, 2HB, 2HG,2HG5 and decreases in T and WC. Pressing for 1-10minutes produces only relatively small changes incomparison to the 30 second steaming, but the sametrends occur. Finnimore [ 2 ) has similarly observed thatsteam pressing of wool causes an increase in the pri-mary hand value koshi ( stiffness ) with a concomitantdecrease in fukurami ( fullness and softness ) and nu-meri (smoothness).

TABLE II. Relative change in the mechanical properties of wool

fabric with steam pressing.

I

Original fabric values are 1.0.

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In contrast, other workers [7] have reported steam

pressing produces a decrease in koshi and an increasein numeri and fukurami. Examination of their data

. shows, however, that the opposite can occur dependingon the steam press conditions and fabric used. There-

fore the variation we observed in these studies reflects

the importance of steam pressing in the final mechan-ical properties of the finished fabric.

Treating wool worsted fabric with perchloroethyleneat 30C produces a decrease in the bending and shear

rigidity (B and G) (Table III). The interyarn and in-terfiber friction also decreases as indicated by the lower

2HG, 2HG5, and 2HB values. We hoped that the per-chloroethylene treatment at a higher temperaturewould further accentuate the reduction in the fabric

stiffness and improve the fabric handle, but this treat-ment at 50C resulted in a fabric only marginally softer,

smoother,, and less stiff.

TABLE III. Relative change in the mechanical properties of woolfabric with dry cleaning at 30 and 50C.

All original fabric values are 1.0.

Okamoto [ 6] has reported that dry cleaning at 30C

improves fabric handle, with koshi decreasing and fu-kurami and numeri increasing. The difference is the

pressing conditions, again emphasizing the importanceof this step.Apparently the solvent treatment can re-duce koshi, but the pressing controls fukurami and nu-meri.

Treating the wool with perchloroethylene / methanolmixtures improves the abrasion resistance, and otherworkers have examined it with a view to cleaning wool[ 1, 5 ] . Similarly, we hoped that the presence of the

swelling solvent methanol could improve the handleof the fabric. However, we observed no appreciabledifference between the mixed solvent and the perchlo-roethylene treatment alone at 30 and 50C (Table IV).

TABLE 1V. Relative change in the mechanical properties of woolfabric treated with perchloroethylene/methanol at 30 and 50C.

All original fabric values are t.0.

SCOURING

Scouring ofloom state fabric can be achieved eitherin an aqueous or solvent medium, resulting in fabricsof differing handle ( Table V). KES-F measurementsindicate that the stiffness decreases in the following or-der: loom state, solvent scour, nonionic scour, and soapflake scour. Subjective analysis [ 3 ] of the wool ranksthe fabrics in the following order:

TABLE V. Mechanical parameters of scoured fabrics.

We calculated Pearson correlation coefficients to

compare the objective with the subjective analysis, andwe conducted significance tests on these correlationcoefficients at the 0.1, 0.05, and 0.01 levels. The cor-

relation between the objective and subjective analysiswas high for the koshi ( stiffness ) primary hand value

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(Table VI), and there was a high correlation between

judges for koshi, indicating the subjective differenceswere highly significant.Although the differences be-tween the koshi values were small, it is interesting tonote that the judges were able to differentiate betweenthe fabrics. We found no significant correlation for nu-meri and fukurami and the subjective analysis ofsmoothness and softness, respectively, though again the

soap flake scour was regarded as producing the &dquo;best&dquo;fabric.

TABLE VI. Results of significance test of correlation coefficients forsubjective handle against objective measurements.

* Significant at 0.level, ** significant at 0.05 level, *** significant

at 0.01 level.

.

1

Conclusions

Dry cleaning alters the mechanical properties ofwoolworsted fabric; the solvent treatment reduces the stiff-

ness, while the steam press controls the smoothness,fullness, and softness. The perchloroethylene treatmentat an elevated temperature or in combination with a

swelling agent only marginally affects the mechanicalproperties in comparison to the normal perchloroeth-ylene treatment.

Solvent scouring of loom state fabric imparts theworst handle to wool fabric. The soap flake scour pro-duces fabric with the best handle; the judges in the

sufijective measurement were able to differentiate be-

tween the fabrics even though the differences between

the koshi values were small.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We wish to thank Mr. T. McCall for assistance in

preparing the samples, Mrs. J. Bishop and Mrs. F. Gra-

ham for KES-F measurements, and Mr. E. MacGregorfor helpful discussions. Thanks also to Schofields, Gal-ashiels, for their cooperation and advice in preparingthe samples.

Literature Cited

1. Feldtman, H. D., Leeder, J.A., and Rippon, J.A., TheRole of Fibre Structure in Wool Fibre and Fabric Per-

formance, in "Objective Evaluation of Apparel Fabric,"R. Postle, S. Kawabata, and M. Niwa, Eds., Textile Ma-

chinery Society of Japan, Osaka, 1983, pp. 125.

2. Finnimore, E., The DWIs Experience in ObjectiveHandle Measurement, in "Objective Specification ofFabric Quality, Mechanical Properties and Perfor-mance," S. Kawabata, R. Postle, and M. Niwa, Eds.,Textile Machinery Society of Japan, Osaka, 1982, pp.273.

3. ICI, Fibre Textile Development, Test Method 450, Edn.2.

4. Kawabata, S., "The Standardisation andAnalysis ofHand Evaluation," 2nd ed., The Textile Machinery So-ciety of Japan, Osaka, Japan,1980.

5. Meechels, J., Derminot, J., Knott, J., and Bredereck, K.,

Treatment of Textiles in an Organic Solvent Medium,Commission of European Communities - Industrial

Processes, Luxemburg, 1980.6. Okamoto, Y., and Niwa, M., Changes of Mechanical

Properties and Handle of Fabrics for Mens Suits by DryCleaning, J. Jpn. Res. Assn. Textile End-Users 23, 293-

300 (1982).7. Shiomi, S., and Niwa, M., Changes in Mechanical Prop-

erties and Hand of Woven Fabrics Caused by Steam

Pressing, J. Textile Mach. Soc. Jpn. 33,T40-T52 (1980).8. White, M.A., Processing ofWool in Solvent Media, Part

2, Wool Sci. Rev. 53,50-67 (1977).

Manuscript received January 14. 1988: accepted March 8, 1988.

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