Ecofriendly pretreatment of cotton fabrics by ultrasonication and reusing bath chemicals

Abstract

The textile industries of Bangladesh contribute significantly to the country's economy, accounting for more than 40% of total annual export. The quest of new technologies for efficient water and energy use in cotton knit dyeing could result in significant water savings and improve environmental sustainability. Textile wet processing consumes a lot of utilities (water and energy), and the water generates a lot of waste, which enhances chemical consumption and effluent management costs. The cotton knit fabric used in this study was pretreated and dyed utilizing ultrasonication at a lower temperature than conventional pretreatment and dyeing techniques in an attempt to establish ecofriendly wet processing in the textile industry. The bath chemicals were reused up to two times before dyeing in conventional techniques, and fabric properties such as whiteness index, weight loss, bursting strength, color fastness to light, washing, perspiration, rubbing, color strength and durability, or dimensional stability were evaluated and compared with the values obtained by conventional techniques. The color matching of reactive dyed fabric for ultrasonic pretreated fabric with and without reusing bath chemicals was determined. The sonicated scoured and bleached fabric's whiteness index was found to be acceptable, with relatively low weight loss; however, the bursting strength was found to be increased. Color fastness to light, washing, perspiration, and rubbing were found to be comparable to the conventional technique for low temperature ultrasonicated pretreated and reuse-1 pretreated dyed knit fabric. The results also revealed that there was no color degradation during ultrasonication. FT-IR spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed no significant changes in the chemical composition of cellulose or the fabric shape of pretreated and dyed cotton knit fabric after ultrasonication.

Keywords: Cotton knit fabric; Eco-friendly dyeing; Pretreatment; Reactive dyes; Ultrasonic cavitation.