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STUDY OF THE ULTRASOUND EFICIENCY ON BIOSCOURING TREATMENT OF HEMP - COTTON FABRICS

Mihaela Dochia

Abstract

The influence of ultrasound energy on bioscouring treatment applied on a 50 % of hemp + 50 % of cotton woven fabric was studied. The aim of the bioscouring treatment was the removal of the natural cellulose attendants for better fabric properties. The treatment conditions were: variable concentration between 1-3 % (o.w.f.) of the commercial enzyme product Beisol PRO, which is a mixture of pectinases from Bezema Company, Switzerland, 2 g/L of the complexing agent EDTA, 0.5 % of wetting agent Denimcol Wash RGN, phosphate buffer solution of 0.1 Molar and pH 8, 20:1 liquor to fabric ratio, temperature of 55 0C and variable time between 15-55 minutes. The experiments were conducted using a central, correlation, rotatable, second order compound program with two independent variables: enzyme concentration and treatment time. The effect of enzymes mixture was intensified by ultrasound in an Elmasonic X-tra basic 2500 ultrasound bath from Elma Company, Germany. The sound field had 45 KHz frequency. The efficiency of bioscouring process in the presence of ultrasound was established by analyzing some specific fabric properties like: weight loss, hydrophilycity, whiteness index, crystallinity, tensile strength and elongation at break. Also, investigation of the surface morphologyies of the hemp/cotton treated fabric was made by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and colorimetric analysis after dyeing with alizarin were performed. The results showed the effectiveness of this bioscouring process in ultrasound without significant degradation of the 50 % of cotton + 50 % of hemp fabric.

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