Abstract
Chitosan is a polysaccharide with cationic amino groups in its structure and has useful properties as functional materials. Various end-use developments of chitosan are in progress. When the cotton fabric is pretreated with chitosan, the hand property of cotton fabric may be improved expecially for the summer apparel. In this study, as a cross-linking agent to introduce chitosan into cotton, BTCA(butane-1,2,3,4-tetracarboxylic acid) or CA(citric acid) was added in order to prevent detachment of chitosan by the cross-linking. During the cross-linking procedure, via the padding-drying-heat setting, amino groups of chitosan and hydroxyl groups of cotton, carboxyl groups of BTCA/CA are cross-linked by forming anhydrous cyclic rings. Since BTCA has four carboxyl groups, cross-linking by thermal treatment is easy, leading to the trials in wrinkle-recovery treatment of cotton fabrics. However, the high price of the BTCA reagent has been a shortcoming in the actual application for industrial use. Therefore, in this study, we tried the application of CA having three carboxyl groups, which is relatively low priced, as the substituting cross-linking agent. The hand of the treated fabrics were evaluated by measuring physical properties. In addition, based on the physical properties, three-dimensional images were introduced by using 3D CAD systems and results were compared.