Abstract
Continuous photografting/crosslinking of polyethyleneglycol dimethacrylate oligomers onto cotton using a water-soluble benzophenone photoinitiator was investigated. Photografting increased with increasing irradiation dose, oligomer concentration and photoinitiator concentration. Maximum grafting efficiency of DM 400 and 600 were 83% and 79%, respectively. the photografting increased the wrinkle resistance of cotton implying surface crosslinking of cotton. bothsurface crosslinking and bulk crosslinking of cotton were accomplished via dual curing of a mixed formulation containing both a thermally curable component (BTCCA/SHP) and a UV-curable component. The wrinkle resistance of the crosslinked cotton was found to be higher when cured by thermal curing due to the facile post-polymerization of the UV active component. The presence of crosslinks in the dually crosslinked cotton was verified with FT-IR and thermogravimetric analysis.