Classifications

• • D—TEXTILES; PAPER
  • D06—TREATMENT OF TEXTILES OR THE LIKE; LAUNDERING; FLEXIBLE MATERIALS NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • D06M—TREATMENT, NOT PROVIDED FOR ELSEWHERE IN CLASS D06, OF FIBRES, THREADS, YARNS, FABRICS, FEATHERS OR FIBROUS GOODS MADE FROM SUCH MATERIALS
  • D06M13/00—Treating fibres, threads, yarns, fabrics or fibrous goods made from such materials, with non-macromolecular organic compounds; Such treatment combined with mechanical treatment
  • D06M13/322—Treating fibres, threads, yarns, fabrics or fibrous goods made from such materials, with non-macromolecular organic compounds; Such treatment combined with mechanical treatment with compounds containing nitrogen
  • D06M13/35—Heterocyclic compounds
  • D06M13/355—Heterocyclic compounds having six-membered heterocyclic rings
  • D06M13/358—Triazines
• • D—TEXTILES; PAPER
  • D06—TREATMENT OF TEXTILES OR THE LIKE; LAUNDERING; FLEXIBLE MATERIALS NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • D06M—TREATMENT, NOT PROVIDED FOR ELSEWHERE IN CLASS D06, OF FIBRES, THREADS, YARNS, FABRICS, FEATHERS OR FIBROUS GOODS MADE FROM SUCH MATERIALS
  • D06M15/00—Treating fibres, threads, yarns, fabrics, or fibrous goods made from such materials, with macromolecular compounds; Such treatment combined with mechanical treatment
  • D06M15/19—Treating fibres, threads, yarns, fabrics, or fibrous goods made from such materials, with macromolecular compounds; Such treatment combined with mechanical treatment with synthetic macromolecular compounds
  • D06M15/21—Macromolecular compounds obtained by reactions only involving carbon-to-carbon unsaturated bonds
  • D06M15/263—Macromolecular compounds obtained by reactions only involving carbon-to-carbon unsaturated bonds of unsaturated carboxylic acids; Salts or esters thereof
  • D06M15/267—Macromolecular compounds obtained by reactions only involving carbon-to-carbon unsaturated bonds of unsaturated carboxylic acids; Salts or esters thereof of unsaturated carboxylic esters having amino or quaternary ammonium groups

Definitions

• This invention relates to improvements in the treatment of wool to impart shrink resistance thereto and is more especially concerned with the treatment of materials consisting of or containing wool which are available in continuous lengths, or which can readily be joined together into a continuous form to enable the same to be subjected to substantially uniform treatment.
• Woollen materials which are available in continuous lengths include yarns, tops and woven and knitted fabrics consisting of or containing wool. Such lengths may also be formed by sewing together knitted garments such as socks: these are then separated after completion of the treatment.
• the invention can also be applied to loose wool.
• means are required for transporting loose wool in a continuous fashion.
• Such means are known in the field and include conveyer belts and rotating rake systems.
• Amino-acrylic polymers are well known and are described, for example, in British Patent Nos.1318781 and 1393273.
• the use of such polymers for the shrink-proofing of wool has been suggested, for example in U.S. Patent Nos. 3678098 and 3842054, although not it is believed in a two-stage continuous process.
• the present invention results from our discovery that certain polymers containing quaternized amino groups confer surprisingly good shrink-resistance and other advantages when used in-a two-stage treatment of the conventional kind.
• Preferred forms of the invention overcome each of the three disadvantages noted above.
• a major advantage of the present process is that it requires significantly less energy than other conventional shrink-proofing processes, in order to achieve a comparable degree of drying of the wool. Indeed, it is estimated that there is at least a 20% saving in energy over such processes.
• wool treated by the present process requires less heat treatment than wool treated by known processes.
• the wool is preferably dried to a moisture level of 12-15% (by weight), whereas conventional processes involve drying to a lower moisture content. A low moisture level may lead to handling difficulties during subsequent processing of the wool.
• the temperature of the drier can be reduced, thus saving power.
• the drying time can be reduced,thus increasing throughput. It is believed that plants operating the process of the present invention will have a greater capacity and be generally more efficient because of these less stringent drying requirements. The reduced energy requirement should also result in a significant saving in overall running costs.
• chlorinating pretreatment is a conventional procedure and a number of suitable treatments are already well known.
• Chlorinating agents such as hypochlorite or sodium dichloroisocyanurate may be employed, (optionally together with potassium permanganate or permonosul- phate) at levels of 0.25-2.0% active chlorine,by weight on the weight of the dry wool (O.W.W.), most preferably 0.5-1.2%.
• active chlorine by weight on the weight of the dry wool (O.W.W.)
• O.W.W. dry wool
• the pretreatment will,by itself, produce a small degree of shrink-resistance in the wool.
• the wool is subjected to antichlorination treatment with sulphite and rinsed and is then ready for the polymer application stage.
• the polymer used contains quaternized amino groups in sufficient proportion to cause the polymer to exhaust from aqueous solution on to the (anionic) wool fibres.
• the polymer is derived from a monomer or polymer containing tertiary amino groups, some or preferably all of these are quaternized, sufficient to confer the desired cationic character on the polymer.
• the polymers may be homopolymers or copolymers. Two classes of such polymers are described, of which B) is preferred:-
• Tertiary nitrogen atoms may be quaternized before or after polymerisation of the monomers. Quaternisation techniques are well known in the art and will not be described here. Quaternizing agents may be monofunctional or polyfunctional, and it may be useful to use a polyfunctional agent either alone or in admixture-with a monofunctional one, in order to achieve some degree of cross-linking of the polymer after application to the wool fibres. Suitable quaternizing agents include:
• Monomers containing tertiary nitrogen atoms may be homopolymerized, or alternatively may be copolymerized with one or more other monomers such as:-
• this other monomer may be chosen to impart desired properties to the copolymer.
• acrylamide may give rise to a copolymer having greater water-solubility than does methyl methacrylate.
• the molar proportion of the amino-group-containing monomer in the polymer (100% in homopolymers, less than 100% in copolymers) is chosen with various factors in mind. The proportion must be sufficiently large for the polymer to be soluble in water at the required concentration and to exhaust on to wool fibres at a satisfactory rate. If the proportion is too high, then the shrink-resist properties of the polymer on the wool may not be realised immediately or may be affected by subsequent dyeing or washing treatments, or dye uptake and fastness may be adversely affected.
• the polymers may be prepared by solution polymerisation in a water-miscible organic solvent.
• the proportion of amino-group-containing monomer(s) needs to be chosen bearing in mind the need to perform the polymerisation and subsequent quaternization reactions in solution.
• a chain transfer agent may be included. Isopropanol is a suitable solvent and has the advantage of acting also as a chain transfer agent.
• Polymerization conditions are well known in the art and not critical. Preferred conditions result in a concentrated solution of polymer in 50:50 isopropanol:water. This is diluted with water to 5% solids for eventual use as make-up for the treatment bath. In continuous operation, the polymer concentration in the bath reaches an equilibrium value generally in the range 0.1% to 1% by weight.
• polymers are water-soluble under acid conditions, and are preferably stored and transported at a pH of from 3 to 6. Under alkaline conditions, cross-linking may occur, particularly when quaternization has been effected using a difunctional agent such as epichlorhydrin.
• a feature of the present process is that very low levels of polymer may be used and still produce acceptable shrink-resist properties.
• the precise level of polymer employed will depend on the concentration of chlorine used in the pretreatment, i.e. use of a high level of chlorine will generally mean that a lower level of polymer is required and vice-versa.
• the polymer should be applied to the wool at a level of 0.4-2.0% (o.w.w), preferably 0.5-0.8%.
• the aqueous polymer solution should be acid stabilised (preferably pH 3.5-4.0) and diluted to approximately 5% solids before being fed to the application bowl.
• the application bowl itself should be previously set at an alkaline pH (in the range pH 7-10 preferably pH 8.5-9.5) and maintained at this value by the addition of an agent such as sodium carbonate.
• a preferred solution to the problem comprises the use of a water-soluble cationic material which may be either monomeric or polymeric. This material should react preferentially with the proteinaceous material and keep it in solution or suspension. It should be used in an amount small enough as not to substantially affect the exhaustion of the polymer on to the wool fibres; an amount of from 2% to 20% by weight on the weight of the polymer is suitable.
• the material may be added to the polymer concentrate followed by dilution of the mixture to the desired concentration for addition to the treatment bath.
• Suitable materials are available commercially; their chemical constitutions are often not published in detail, but it is believed that they generally contain tertiary or quaternary nitrogen atoms:- It will be noted that many of these materials are flocculating agents. They are here being used for the opposite purpose of keeping proteinaceous matter in solution or suspension.
• the Unisol and Ethomeen materials are believed to have the general formula:-
• the wool is dried.
• the drying stage requires significantly less energy than that required by other comparable shrink-proofing processes, in order to achieve the same degree of drying of the wool. Indeed, care must be taken to avoid over drying the wool since this may cause handling problems due to the development of static electricity.
• Example 1 demonstrates the effectiveness of various polymers according to the present invention in imparting shrink-resistance to wool.
• Examples 2 and 3 are comparative examples serving to demonstrate the advantages of the present process over various other commercially available shrink-proofing processes.
• Example 4 relates to a number of industrial trials which have been carried out to illustrate the improved drying properties exhibited by the process of the invention.
• Example 5 is a comparative example illustrating the effectiveness of the additive in reducing turbidity and precipitation in the polymer bowl.
• the wool was passed through a bowl containing the required polymer so that the wool picked-up 1% polymer solids and finally the tops were passed through a dryer operating at 75-80°C.
• the wool was spun to 2/24's worsted count and knitted to a cover factor of 1.29 Direct Tex. A swatch was then tested to the I.W.S. TM 185 3 hours standard in a Cubex machine.
• Wool tops were oxidatively treated by the chlorination process ii) of Example 1 and spun and knitted into fabric.
• Polymer was then applied to the fabric by exhaustion from a bath at pH 9.0.
• Wool tops were treated according to the process of the invention on a commercial backwasher range and dried by passing through a 3 drum dryer operating deliberately at a high temperature of 90°C. A quantity of tops were removed before entering the dryer and allowed to dry at room temperature. Samples were then immediately spun to 2/24's worsted count, knitted and tested according to the TM 185 test. % Area Felting Shrinkage (TM 185)
• Example 1 ii) using polymer b The treatment substantially as described in Example 1 ii) using polymer b), has been applied in a series of trials on three industrial plants which normally operate the same oxidative process as that being used for the pretreatment in these experiments. In each case the trials were run for approximately f hour with the machine speed and the initial dryer temperature being the same.as for normal production.
• the wool was dried to a moisture content below 18% using at least 20% less energy than had been required to dry to the same moisture content the wool routinely shrink-resist treated in that plant.
• the pre-treated sliver then passed through a four bowl backwasher where they were successively given an antichlorination treatment, a water rinse, application of a polymer, and finally, application of a cationic softener.
• the sulphite bowl was maintained at a concentration of 1% and pH 8.5-9.0 by appropriate addition of sulphite solution and alkali.
• the polymer bowl was fed with a 5% solution of polymer type (b) at a rate to give 0.75% polymer solids on weight of wool passing through the bowl.
• the pH of the bath was maintained at pH 8.5-9.0 by addition of alkali.

Landscapes

• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Textile Engineering (AREA)
• Chemical & Material Sciences (AREA)
• Chemical Kinetics & Catalysis (AREA)
• Treatments For Attaching Organic Compounds To Fibrous Goods (AREA)
• Chemical Or Physical Treatment Of Fibers (AREA)
• Fertilizers (AREA)
• Chemical Treatment Of Metals (AREA)
• Yarns And Mechanical Finishing Of Yarns Or Ropes (AREA)
• Laminated Bodies (AREA)

Priority Applications (1)

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Publications (3)

Family

ID=10542701

Family Applications (1)

Country Status (8)

Cited By (5)

Family Cites Families (3)

• 1983
  • 1983-05-13 GB GB838313262A patent/GB8313262D0/en active Pending
• 1984
  • 1984-05-11 EP EP84303233A patent/EP0129322B1/de not_active Expired - Lifetime
  • 1984-05-11 IT IT20894/84A patent/IT1173633B/it active
  • 1984-05-11 AT AT84303233T patent/ATE57546T1/de not_active IP Right Cessation
  • 1984-05-11 JP JP59095453A patent/JPS59228082A/ja active Granted
  • 1984-05-11 DE DE8484303233T patent/DE3483407D1/de not_active Expired - Fee Related
  • 1984-05-14 ZA ZA843625A patent/ZA843625B/xx unknown
  • 1984-05-14 BE BE0/212935A patent/BE899657A/fr not_active IP Right Cessation

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