Effect of biopolishing and UV absorber treatment on the UV protection properties of cotton knitted fabrics
Introduction
The application of enzymes in textile processing started in the middle of 19th century when malt extract was used for desizing of some textiles (Aly et al., 2004, Guebitz et al., 2006). In the last few decades, enzymes have increasingly developed and been used for pretreatment to finishing processes (Parvinzadeh, 2007, Parvinzadeh et al., 2009, Parvinzadeh et al., 2013). One of the important enzymes called cellulase has been commonly used in knitted fabric processing to enhance smoothness (Kan & Wong, 2011). Cellulase can remove fuzzy fibre and pills from the surface, decreasing the pilling and providing a soft hand and feel (Cavaco-Paulo et al., 1996, Tyndall, 1990). This process is called bio-polishing. Cotton's chemical composition is pure cellulose, consisting of highly ordered crystalline region and loosely structured amorphous region. The amorphous region is responsible to form the fuzz and pilling on fabric surface. The use of cellulase is responsible for degradation of the amorphous region with minimum weight loss. Therefore, use of cellulase for biopolishing helps removal of surface fibrils, small protruding fibres, seed coat fragments and other natural impurities of cotton fibre (Anish, Rahman, & Rao, 2007).
Previous findings have stated that the biopolishing action of cellulase on cotton results in significant structural changes in the treated fabric (Buschle-Diller et al., 1994, Haga and Takagishi, 2001) and improves the subsequent chemical processing (Kan et al., 2009a, Kan et al., 2009b). However, little discussion has been reported on the effect of biopolishing and UV treatment on anti-UV properties of cotton knitted fabric. In this study, two types cotton knitted fabrics were made from conventional ring spun yarn and torque-free ring spun yarn. Torque-free ring spinning is a new spinning technology that produces yarns with low twist and balanced torque (Tao et al., 1997a, Tao et al., 1997b, Wong et al., 2004). The mechanical properties, especially softness of the fabric produced by torque-free ring spinning method are similar to conventional ring spun fabric (Wong et al., 2004). This study examined whether the impact of biopolishing and UV treatment on anti-UV properties would be different on cotton knitted fabric made of torque-free ring spun yarn. Biopolishing agent and UV absorber are used to treat scoured and bleached cotton knitted fabrics in order to understand their effect on UPF values of treated fabrics. The purpose of this study is thus to investigate the influence of biopolishing agent and UV absorber on anti-UV properties, expressed as UV protection factor (UPF) and UV ray transmittance of cotton knitted fabrics made from conventional ring spun yarn and torque-free ring spun yarn with the same knitting.
Section snippets
Material and fabric preparation
Plain knitted fabrics were produced with circular knitting machine (DXC Fukuhara) with gauge number 20 and with yarn count of 30 tex. (The yarns were provided by Central Textiles (H.K.) Ltd.) Fabric specifications are listed in Table 1. The major difference between Fabric 1 and Fabric 2 is the amount of twist in the yarn. In this paper, yarn twist level is defined as the number of twists per 1 cm of yarn. The yarn in Fabric 1 was made by conventional ring spun yarn while Fabric 2 was manufactured
Results and discussion
In this study, results of the four treatment conditions are discussed as follows:
- (i)
Control (untreated) – fabric without treatment;
- (ii)
Biopolishing – fabric treated with cellulase only;
- (iii)
UV absorber – fabric treated with UV absorber only; and
- (iv)
UV absorber + biopolishing – fabric treated with biopolishing first followed by UV absorber.
Conclusion
This study examined the effect of UV absorber and biopolishing on UPF value, UV ray transmittance and surface morphology of cotton knitted fabrics made from torque-free ring spun yarn and conventional ring spun yarn, in order to assess the UV protection ability of knitted fabrics. The results confirmed that biopolishing has positive effects on increasing UPF value of cotton knitted fabric. A synergetic effect of UV absorber and biopolishing on UPF of treated knitted fabric was observed. It was
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