Ultrasonics 43 (2005) 811–814

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Hydrogen peroxide bleaching of cotton in ultrasonic energy

_
S. Ilker Mistik, S. Müge Yükseloǧlu *

Faculty of Technical Education, Department of Textile Education, Marmara University, Göztepe-Istanbul-34722, Turkey

Received 4 October 2004; received in revised form 3 February 2005; accepted 11 June 2005
Available online 14 July 2005

Abstract

It is well known that, conventional hydrogen peroxide bleaching process is an important and a specific step for wet processors;
however it has some problems such as long time, high energy consumption. On the other hand, using ultrasonic energy in bleaching
is an alternative method for the conventional processes.
In this work, 100% cotton materials of different forms such as raw fibre, ring-spun yarns and knitted fabrics produced from these
cottons, were treated with hydrogen peroxide in two different concentrations (5 mL/L and 10 mL/L), at three different temperatures
(20 °C, 30 °C, 40 °C) and times (20 min, 30 min, 60 min). Whiteness Index of the samples were then measured spectrophotometri-
cally and the overall results were compared.
Ó 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Hydrogen peroxide; Conventional bleaching; Cotton; Fibre; Yarn; Knitted fabric; Ultrasonic energy; Whiteness Index

1. Introduction conventional methods. Therefore, the use of ultrasonic

energy in wet finishing has potential in decreasing the
Textile materials can be in different forms such as amount of the process time, energy, chemicals used in
loose fibres, spun and filament yarns, woven and knitted and in improving product quality. On the other hand,
fabrics or non-woven materials. Even though, form of conventional bleaching is a process that is widely used
the material may define the best type of machinery on in textiles to improve the whiteness of the materials, with
a commercial scale, it is the nature of the fibre itself that or without the removal of natural colouring matter and/
guides the process to be used. The idea of implementing or extraneous substances, by bleaching agent [7]. For a
ultrasonic energy to textiles, especially for the wet finish- brief remind; Whiteness Index is the situation of being
ing processes [1–4], has been initiated since 1990s; in 100% whiteness index of textile material that has the
these works generally ultrasonic energy was applied to ability of reflecting light. CIE Whiteness Index WI (for
dyeing of textiles. On the other hand, dyeability proper- 2° standard observer) or WI10 (for 10° standard obser-
ties of bleached cotton yarns and woven fabrics [5] and ver) formulates as shown below [8]:
more recently washing of medical surgery gowns were
WI ¼ Y þ 800ðxn  xÞ þ 1700ðy n  yÞ
studied by the ultrasound technique [6] and it has been
discovered that ultrasonic energy can be used to enhance WI10 ¼ Y 10 þ 800ðxn;10  x10 Þ þ 1700ðy n;10  y 10 Þ
removing the stains on the fabrics and the ultrasonically In this formula x, x10, Y, y10 are the colorimetric values
treated fabrics have shown less tenacity loss than the calculated by the using of 2° and 10° standard observersÕ
values under D65 illuminant. xn, xn,10, and yn, yn,10 are
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 216 3365770x407; fax: +90 216
the cromatisite coordinates of D65 illuminant belong to
3496111. 2° and 10° standard observer. Whiteness Index of
E-mail address: myukseloglu@marmara.edu.tr (S.M. Yükseloǧlu). diffusioner has ideal reflecting property is 100.0.

0041-624X/$ - see front matter Ó 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ultras.2005.06.002
812 _ Mistik, S.M. Yükseloǧlu / Ultrasonics 43 (2005) 811–814
S.I.

Table 1 Table 2
Raw fibre parameters Recipe of the bleaching process
Fibre properties Cotton A Cotton B Recipe Ultrasonic Conventional hot
bleaching bleaching
Micronaire 3.74 4.61
%50 Span length (mm) 25.6 15.1 Liquor ratio 1:30 1:20
%2.5 Span length (mm) 30.0 31.7 H2O2 5 mL/L, 10 mL/L (33.5%) 5 mL/L, 10 mL/L (33.5%)
Uniformity 85.4 47.6 Wetting agent 1 g/L 1 g/L
Strength (g/tex) 32.2 44.6 Stabilizer 1 g/L (Prestogen) 1 g/L (Prestogen)
Elongation (%) 9.6 10.2 NaOH 1 g/L 1 g/L
Amount 655 695
Temperature 20 °C, 30 °C, 40 °C 90 °C
Rd 76 72.2
Time 20 min, 30 min, 60 min 60 min
+b 10.9 10.8
Colour grade 22-1 32-1
Leaf 2 5 the main objective of this work is to point out reducing
Area 0.97 2.82 time and temperature of the bleaching process by using
Count 65 85
ultrasonic energy and therefore namely by utilizing the
Whiteness Index of unbleached cotton (WI)* 34.8 39.2
*
energy consumption however, the information available
Measured on the Datacolor Spectraflash 600 Plus.
on ultrasound field distribution in this bleaching bath is
limited, further study is ongoing and will be reported in
Rather to a conventional bleaching technique, an
the near future.
ultrasonic energy can therefore be adopted successfully
and with this method much more Whiteness Index
(WI) for the cellulosic materials can be obtained than 2. Experimental work
the cold bleaching. Despite significant research [9–11]
in wet textile processes by accelerating mass transfer in 2.1. Materials and method
textiles, the exact physical mechanism of the intensifica-
tion of the mass transfer in the textile materials under In this study, two different micronaire of Turkish cot-
influence of ultrasound is not well known yet. Although tons were used; one cotton is abbreviated A and the

Table 3
Whiteness Index (WI) of the cotton fibres, ring-spun yarns and knitted fabrics
Bleaching method Fibre A Yarn A Fabric A
5 mL/L H2O2 10 mL/L H2O2 5 mL/L H2O2 10 mL/L H2O2 5 mL/L H2O2 10 mL/L H2O2
Ultrasonic (U)
20 °C 20 0 48.0 53.0 29.4 33.6 28.9 31.2
20 °C 30 0 53.6 59.4 29.8 36.2 29.1 35.1
20 °C 60 0 56.3 58.8 32.7 39.5 31.5 37.9
30 °C 20 0 52.4 53.8 28.8 27.0 28.2 33.7
30 °C 30 0 54.2 54.4 31.5 30.0 35.2 35.5
30 °C 60 0 56.1 59.9 32.9 42.3 37.8 40.1
40 °C 20 0 56.4 56.9 40.6 36.8 36.4 41.4
40 °C 30 0 57.2 60.7 36.5 42.6 35.3 40.9
40 °C 60 0 58.6 58.6 41.8 45.6 41.6 43.8
Conventional (C)
90 °C 60 0 76.0 77.5 65.0 73.7 68.0 71.3
Non-treated (N) 34.8 34.8 23.0 23.0 5.5 5.5
Fibre B Yarn B Fabric B
5 mL/L H2O2 10 mL/L H2O2 5 mL/L H2O2 10 mL/L H2O2 5 mL/L H2O2 10 mL/L H2O2
Ultrasonic (U)
20 °C 20 0 46.4 53.7 28.6 40.6 27.6 29.6
20 °C 30 0 49.6 55.7 34.0 41.0 29.0 35.9
20 °C 60 0 51.7 54.5 36.3 41.8 33.9 38.3
30 °C 20 0 50.9 51.2 33.5 30.7 25.7 33.7
30 °C 30 0 50.1 53.4 28.3 34.9 35.5 36.1
30 °C 60 0 54.7 56.2 38.1 35.7 38.3 42.6
40 °C 20 0 54.7 57.0 36.1 39.7 34.4 45.8
40 °C 30 0 55.2 59.8 40.0 38.7 35.4 43.2
40 °C 60 0 56.6 58.0 41.8 44.7 42.9 47.7
Conventional (C)
90 °C 60 0 76.9 78.1 67.3 75.3 66.5 72.0
Non-treated (N) 39.2 39.2 19.0 19.0 8.5 8.5
 _ Mistik, S.M. Yükseloǧlu / Ultrasonics 43 (2005) 811–814
S.I. 813

Fig. 1. Whiteness Index (WI) of the cotton samples (5 mL/L concentration of H2O2).

Fig. 2. Whiteness Index (WI) of the cotton samples (10 mL/L concentration of H2O2).

other is coded as B. The raw cotton fibre properties of and cotton B are given in Table 3. The related graphs
these samples were tested on the HVI 900 at of these samples are also shown in the Figs. 1 and 2.
20 ± 2 °C, 65% ± 2 RH conditions and their details As can be seen from the figures given above, the
are given in Table 1. The Ne22 ring-spun yarns of these whiteness of the ultrasonically treated cotton samples
samples were produced at twist constant of ae3.8. Later, have generally shown an increase as the temperature
the knitted fabrics were produced from the same yarns and bleaching period increases; the most increase can
on the Mayer brand of 800 circular knitting machine. be seen on the knitted fabrics. Also, the duration of
The yarns and the knitted fabrics produced from the the ultrasonic treatment (20 min) is significantly less,
same cottons were again symbolized as A and B corre- compared to the hot conventional bleaching it has been
spondingly. Subsequently, the ring-spun yarns and knit- observed that in both concentrations of H2O2 the cotton
ted fabrics were bleached both conventionally and samples have shown almost twice whiteness than the ori-
ultrasonically regarding to the recipes given in Table 2 ginal whiteness index.
and were measured for their Whiteness Index (WI) on
the Datacolor Spectraflash 600 Plus. The H2O2 bleach-
ing receipe was carried out on the Branson B-2200B 4. Conclusions
E4 (220 volt and 205 Watt) ultrasonic bath of 20 kHz
frequency and on the lab size HT Roaches dyeing 1. The minimum duration of the ultrasonic hydrogen
machine. peroxide bleaching treatment is 1/3 of the conven-
tional hot bleaching and this has been revealed that
generally almost twice whiteness was obtained than
3. Results and discussion the original Whiteness Index of the cotton materials
(fibre, yarn and knitted fabrics). This may be due to
The results on the Whiteness Index (WI) of the the some reaction that is exposed to ultrasonic energy
bleached cotton fibres, ring-spun yarns and knitted and therefore may become faster with lower
fabrics that were produced from the same cotton A temperatures.
814 _ Mistik, S.M. Yükseloǧlu / Ultrasonics 43 (2005) 811–814
S.I.

2. Especially, on the cotton yarns and knitted fabrics, where WICY : is the Whiteness Index of the yarn after
the net effect of hydrogen peroxide bleaching by the conventional bleaching; WIUY : is the Whiteness Index
ultrasonic energy is nearly half of the conventional of the yarn after ultrasonic bleaching.
hot bleaching procedure (1 h, 90 °C). Knitted fabric:
3. Raw cotton fibres have bleached much better than the WICKF ¼ WIUKF  1.28;
yarns and fabrics and hence have shown slightly clo-
ser Whiteness Index to the conventional hot bleach- where WICKF : is the Whiteness Index of the knitted fabric
ing procedure. after conventional bleaching; WIUKF : is the Whiteness
4. Ultrasonic energy has shown that as fibre gets finer Index of the knitted fabric after ultrasonic bleaching.
and both the time and the concentration of hydrogen
peroxide bleaching increases a better Whiteness Index Finally, ultrasonic bleaching of cotton fibre can be at-
can be obtained. tained on the finer fibres than the medium fine fibres and
5. Variations on the concentration and temperature at the 10 mL/L of hydrogen peroxide with the 40 °C,
have an effect on the Whiteness Index of the ultrason- 30 min. of bleaching process. Last but not least, better
ically bleached cotton yarns. whiteness can be achieved on the yarns and on the knit-
6. Yarns produced from the finer micronaire have ted fabrics at the 10 mL/L of hydrogen peroxide with
shown higher Whiteness Index with the increase of the 40 °C, 60 min of ultrasonic bleaching.
temperature at the low concentration of the ultra- We believe that use of ultrasonic energy in bleaching
sonic bleaching than the coarser ones. textiles has a positive effect on the speed of the process
7. Generally, as the temperature and time increase the and improving the whiteness of the materials that is
Whiteness Index of both ultrasonically bleached unenclosed for the future studies.
yarns and fabrics increase.
8. Variation on the micronaire of the knitted fabrics has References
not much affect on the Whiteness Index of the ultra-
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9. Generally, the most higher Whiteness Index within Width Washing of Mercerized 100% Cotton Twill Fabric,
the samples was obtained on the 10 mL/L concentra- AATCC Book of Papers International Conference and Exhibi-
tion of the hydrogen peroxide bleaching with the tem- tion, Atlanta, 1997, p. 25.
[2] S. Shanping, Ultrasound a novel dyeing accelerant, Am. Dyestuff
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[5] J.J. Moses, K. Jagannathan, Bleaching of Cotton Using Hydrogen
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ultrasonic bleaching. (2004) 113–119, Proceedings of Ultrasonics International 2003.
[7] S.R. Beech, C.A. Farnfield, P. Whorton, J.A. Wilkins, Textile
Terms and Definitions, eighth revised ed., The Textile Institute,
Fibre: 1988, ISBN 1-87081206-9, p. 24.
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[9] K.A. Thakore, Physico-chemical study on applying ultrasonics in
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