Because Jim and I quilt - a lot- and we use cotton fabric for a majority of our quilting, I thought I would look into some of the new wrinkle resistant advancements that have occurred since my college days in my textile science classes.
I had to laugh to myself when I was reading an article on some of the chemical related advancements.
At one time I actually could understand this...LOL. In order to prevent cotton wrinkling, hydroxyl groups in the cellulose chain of cotton are partially cross-linked to keep the chain fixed relative to each other with dimethylol dihydroxy ethylene urea (DMDHEU). However, DMDHEU suffers disadvantages of reduced fabric strength and releasing of free formaldehyde. Recently, 1,2,3,4-butane tetracarboxylic acid (BTCA) has been explored as a new wrinkle-resistant agent providing similar performance to that of DMDHEU.
In BTCA finishing, catalyst of inorganic phosphorus-containing acids was used but such phosphorus compounds have an adverse impact on the environment. In this paper, nano-TiO2 was used as a co-catalyst with sodium hypophophite in the treatment of cotton with BTCA, and the final properties were assessed.
Read More: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0218625X07009864
Now you understand who knows what and who does what in our partnership...
Enjoy,
Andy and Jim
Enjoy,
Andy and Jim
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