The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics Part 1

The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics.

by Franklin Beech.

PREFACE.

In writing this little book the author believes he is supplying a want which most Students and Dyers of Cotton Fabrics have felt--that of a small handbook clearly describing the various processes and operations of the great industry of dyeing Cotton.

The aim has not been to produce a very elaborate treatise but rather a book of a convenient size, and in order to do so it has been necessary to be brief and to omit many matters that would rightfully find a place in a larger treatise, but the author hopes that nothing of importance has been omitted. The most modern processes have been described in some detail; care has been taken to select those which experience shows to be thoroughly reliable and to give good results.

FRANKLIN BEECH.

May, 1901.

CHAPTER I.

STRUCTURE AND CHEMISTRY OF THE COTTON FIBRE.

There is scarcely any subject of so much importance to the bleacher, textile colourist or textile manufacturer as the structure and chemistry of the cotton fibre with which he has to deal. By the term chemistry we mean not only the composition of the fibre substance itself, but also the reactions it is capable of undergoing when brought into contact with various chemical substances--acids, alkalies, salts, etc. These reactions have a very important bearing on the operations of bleaching and dyeing of cotton fabrics.

A few words on vegetable textile fibres in general may be of interest.

Fibres are met with in connection with plants in three ways.

First, as cuticle or ciliary fibres or hairs; these are of no practical use, being much too short for preparing textile fabrics from, but they play an important part in the physiology of the plant.

Second, as seed hairs; that is fibres that are attached to the seeds of many plants, such, for instance, as the common thistle and dandelion; the cotton fibre belongs to this group of seed hairs, while there are others, kapok, etc., that have been tried from time to time in spinning and weaving, but without much success. These seed hairs vary much in length, from 1/4 inch to 1-1/2 inches or even 2 inches; each fibre consists of a single unit. Whether it is serviceable as a textile fibre depends upon its structure, which differs in different plants, and also upon the quant.i.ty available.

The third cla.s.s of fibre, which is by far the most numerous, consists of those found lying between the bark or outer cuticle and the true woody tissues of the plant. This portion is known as the bast, and hence these fibres are known as "bast fibres". They are noticeable on account of the great length of the fibres, in some cases upwards of 6 feet, which can be obtained; but it should be pointed out that these long fibres are not the unit fibres, but are really bundles of the ultimate fibres aggregated together to form one long fibre, as found in and obtained from the plant. Thus the ultimate fibres of jute are really very short--from 1/10 to 1/8 of an inch in length; those of flax are somewhat longer. Jute, flax, China gra.s.s and hemp are common fibres which are derived from the bast of the plants.

There is an important point of difference between seed fibres and bast fibres, that is in the degree of purity. While the seed fibres are fairly free from impurities--cotton rarely containing more than 5 per cent.--the bast fibres contain a large proportion of impurity, from 25 to 30 per cent. as they are first obtained from the plant, and this large quant.i.ty has much influence on the extent and character of the treatments to which they are subjected.

As regards the structure of the fibres, it will be sufficient to say that while seed hairs are cylindrical and tubular and have thin walls, bast fibres are more or less polygonal in form and are not essentially tubular, having thick walls and small central ca.n.a.ls.

=The Cotton Fibre.=--The seed hairs of the cotton plant are separated from the seeds by the process of ginning, and they then pa.s.s into commerce as raw cotton. In this condition the fibre is found to consist of the actual fibrous substance itself, containing, however, about 8 per cent. of hygroscopic or natural moisture, and 5 per cent. of impurities of various kinds, which vary in amount and in kind in various descriptions of cotton. In the process of manufacture into cotton cloths, and as the material pa.s.ses through the operations of bleaching, dyeing or printing, the impurities are eliminated.

=Impurities of the Cotton Fibre.=--Dr. E. Schunck made an investigation many years ago into the character of the impurities, and found them to consist of the following substances:--

=Cotton Wax.=--This substance bears a close resemblance to carnauba wax.

It is lighter than water, has a waxy l.u.s.tre, is somewhat translucent, is easily powdered, and melts below the boiling point of water. It is insoluble in water, but dissolves in alcohol and in ether. When boiled with weak caustic soda it melts but is not dissolved by the alkali; it can, however, be dissolved by boiling with alcoholic caustic potash.

This wax is found fairly uniformly distributed over the surface of the cotton fibre, and it is due to this fact that raw cotton is wetted by water only with difficulty.

=Fatty Acids.=--A solid, fatty acid, melting at 55 C. is also present in cotton. Probably stearic acid is the main const.i.tuent of this fatty acid.

=Colouring Matter.=--Two brown colouring matters, both containing nitrogen, can be obtained from raw cotton. One of these is readily soluble in alcohol, the other only sparingly so. The presence in relatively large quant.i.ties of these bodies accounts for the brown colour of Egyptian and some other dark-coloured varieties of cotton.

=Pectic Acid.=--This is the chief impurity found in raw cotton. It can be obtained in the form of an amorphous substance of a light yellow colour, not unlike gum in appearance. It is soluble in boiling water, and the solution has a faint acid reaction. Acids and many metallic salts, such as mercury, chloride and lead acetate, precipitate pectic acid from its solutions. Alkalies combine with it, and these compounds form brown substances, are but sparingly soluble in water, and many of them can be precipitated out by addition of neutral salts, like sodium and ammonium chlorides.

=Alb.u.mens.=--A small quant.i.ty of alb.u.minous matter is found among the impurities of cotton.

=Structure of the Cotton Fibre.=--The cotton fibre varies in length from 1 to 2 inches, not only in fibres of the same cla.s.s but also in fibres from different localities--Indian fibres varying from 0.8 in the shortest to 1.4 in the longest stapled varieties; Egyptian cotton fibres range from 1.1 to 1.6 inches long; American cotton ranges from 0.8 in the shortest to 2 inches in the longest fibres. The diameter is about 1/1260 of an inch. When seen under the microscope fully ripe cotton presents the appearance of irregularly twisted ribbons, with thick rounded edges. The thickest part is the root end, or point of attachment to the seed. The free end terminates in a point. The diameter is fairly uniform through 3/4 to 7/8 of its length, the rest is taper. In Fig. 1 is given some ill.u.s.trations of the cotton fibre, showing this twisted and ribbon-like structure, while in Fig. 1A is given some transverse sections of the fibre. These show that it is a collapsed cylinder, the walls being of considerable thickness when compared with the internal bore or ca.n.a.l.

Perfectly developed, well-formed cotton fibres always present this appearance. But all commercial cottons contain more or less of fibres which are not perfectly developed or are unripe. These are known as "dead fibres"; they do not spin well and they do not dye well. On examination under the microscope it is seen that these fibres have not the flattened, twisted appearance of the ripe fibres, but are flatter, and the central ca.n.a.l is almost obliterated and the fibres are but little twisted. Dead fibres are thin, brittle and weak.

=Composition of the Cotton Fibres.=--Of all the vegetable textile fibres cotton is found to have the simplest chemical composition and to be, as it were, the type substance of all such fibres, the others differing from it in several respects. When stripped of the comparatively small quant.i.ties of impurities, cotton is found to consist of a substance to which the name of cellulose has been given.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 1.--Cotton Fibre.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 1A.]

Cellulose is a compound of the three elements, carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, in the proportions shown in the following a.n.a.lysis:--

Carbon, 44.2 per cent., Hydrogen, 6.3 per cent., Oxygen, 49.5 per cent.,

which corresponds to the empirical formula C{6}H{10}O{5}, which shows it to belong to the group of carbo-hydrates, that is, bodies which contain the hydrogen and oxygen present in them in the proportion in which they are present in water, namely H{2}O.

Cellulose may be obtained in a pure condition from cotton by treatment with alkalies, followed by was.h.i.+ng, and by treatment with alkaline hypochlorites, acids, was.h.i.+ng and, finally, drying. As thus obtained it is a white substance having the form of the fibre from which it is procured, showing a slight l.u.s.tre, and is slightly translucent. The specific gravity is 1.5, it being heavier than water. It is characterised by being very inert, a property of considerable value from a technical point of view, as enabling the fibres to stand the various operations of bleaching, dyeing, printing, finis.h.i.+ng, etc. Nevertheless, by suitable means, cellulose can be made to undergo various chemical decompositions which will be noted in some detail.

Cellulose on exposure to the air will absorb moisture or water. This is known as hygroscopic moisture, or "water of condition". The amount in cotton is about 8 per cent., and it has a very important bearing on the spinning properties of the fibre, as it makes the fibre soft and elastic, while absolutely dry cotton fibre is stiff, brittle and non-elastic; hence it is easier to spin and weave cotton in moist climates or weather than in dry climates or weather. Cotton cellulose is insoluble in all ordinary solvents, such as water, ether, alcohol, chloroform, benzene, etc., and these agents have no influence in any way on the material, but it is soluble in some special solvents that will be noted later on.

ACTION OF ALKALIES.

The action of alkalies on cellulose or cotton is one of great importance in view of the universal use of alkaline liquors made from soda or caustic soda in the scouring, bleaching and dyeing of cotton, while great interest attaches to the use of caustic soda in the "mercerising"

of cotton.

Dilute solutions of the caustic alkalies, caustic soda or caustic potash, of from 2 to 7 per cent. strength, have no action on cellulose or cotton, in the cold, even when a prolonged digestion of the fibre with the alkaline solution takes place. Caustic alkali solutions of from 1 to 2 per cent. strength have little or no action even when used at high temperatures and under considerable pressure--a fact of very great importance from a bleacher's point of view, as it enables him to subject cotton to a boil in kiers, with such alkaline solutions at high pressures, for the purpose of scouring the cotton, without damaging the fibre itself.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 2.--Mercerised Cotton Fibre.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 2A.]

Solutions of caustic soda of greater strength than 3 per cent. tend, when boiled under pressure, to convert the cellulose into soluble bodies, and as much as 20 per cent. of the fibre may become dissolved under such treatment. The action of strong solutions of caustic soda or caustic potash upon cellulose or cotton is somewhat different. Mercer found that solutions containing 10 per cent. of alkali had a very considerable effect upon the fibre, causing it to swell up and become gelatinous and transparent in its structure, each individual cotton fibre losing its ribbon-like appearance, and a.s.suming a rod-like form, the central ca.n.a.l being more or less obliterated. This is shown in Fig.

2 and 2A, where the fibre is shown as a rod and the cross section in Fig. 2A has no central ca.n.a.l. The action which takes place is as follows: The cellulose enters into a combination with the alkali and there is formed a sodium cellulose, which has the formula C{6}H{10}O{5}2NaOH. This alkali cellulose, however, is not a stable body; by was.h.i.+ng with water the alkali is removed, and hydrated cellulose is obtained, which has the formula C{6}H{10}O{5}H{2}O.

Water removes the whole of the alkali, but alcohol only removes one half. It has been observed that during the process of was.h.i.+ng with water the fibre shrinks very much. This shrinkage is more particularly to be observed in the case of cotton. As John Mercer was the first to point out the action of the alkaline solutions on cotton, the process has become known as "mercerisation".

Solutions of caustic soda of 1.000 or 20 Tw. in strength have very little mercerising action, and it is only by prolonged treatment that mercerisation can be effected. It is interesting to observe that the addition of zinc oxide to the caustic solution increases its mercerising powers. Solutions of 1.225 to 1.275 (that is from 45 to 55 Tw. in strength) effect the mercerisation almost immediately in the cold, and this is the best strength at which to use caustic soda solutions for this purpose. In addition to the change brought about by the shrinking and thickening of the material, the mercerised fibres are stronger than the untreated fibres, and at the same time they have a stronger affinity for dyes, a piece of cloth mercerised taking up three times as much colouring matter as a piece of unmercerised cloth from the same dye-bath.

The shrinkage of the cotton, which takes place during the operation of was.h.i.+ng with water, was for a long time a bar to any practical application of the "mercerising" process, but some years ago Lowe ascertained that by conducting the operation while the cotton was stretched or in a state of tension this shrinkage did not take place; further, Thomas and Prevost found that the cotton so treated gained a silky l.u.s.tre, and it has since been ascertained that this l.u.s.tre is most highly developed with the long-stapled Egyptian and Sea Island cottons. This mercerising under tension is now applied on a large scale to produce silkified cotton. When viewed under the microscope, the silkified cotton fibres have the appearance shown in Fig. 3, long rod-like fibres nearly if not quite cylindrical; the cross section of those fibres has the appearance shown in Fig. 3A. This structure fully accounts for the silky l.u.s.tre possessed by the mercerised fibres. Silky mercerised cotton has very considerable affinity for dye-stuffs, taking them up much more readily from dye-baths, and it is dyed in very brilliant shades.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 3.--Silkified Cotton Fibre.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG 3A.]

In the chapter on Scouring and Bleaching of Cotton, some reference will be made to the action of alkalies on cotton.

ACTION OF ACIDS ON CELLULOSE.