EFFECTS OF PREPARATION TREATMENTS FOR COTTON TOWELS ON THE DURABILITY AGAINST PULLING OUT OF PILE YARNS

Abstract

The durability against pulling out of pile yarns is investigated for cotton towels differently treated by desizing, scouring or bleaching. Gray cotton towels having pile durability of about 30gf can gain 100gf durability after scouring and 130gf after scouring followed by bleaching, but are not changed in the pile durability only by desizing. This suggests that each preparation treatment may bring about a different effect on the shape and physical properties of the pile and woven yarns, and therefore on the stickiness of the yarns at their crossing areas.
From the fact that a significant difference in the pile durability is seen between the towels treated with and without preparation reagents, both of which must have been equally changed and distorted in the geometrical state of pile yarns, the deformation of pile yarns seems not so essential for the increases in the pile durability. On the other hand, microscopic observation reveals remarkable difference between the surface states of pile fibers in towels variously treated: the surface state of pile fibers depends on what material is washed out or extracted from the surface in each process of preparation treatment. Hence the effect of preparation treatment on the pile durability may be attributed not to the deformation of texture but to the change in stickiness of fiber brought about by the change in the surface state of fiber.