Introduction to Textiles

(Introduction to wet processing)

Tanzeena Refat Tumpa

Lecturer
Department of Textile Engg.
• In textile wet or chemical processing the chemical
treatments are given to the fabric after being
manufactured. Actually the fabric coming from the
loom is not having properties like absorbency,
softness etc and the most important is that the
appearance of the fabric is dirty or pale yellow; we
cannot use it directly for making apparels or
clothing. So, it is necessary to go for chemical
processing of the material to make it wearable.
Flow Chart of woven fabric wet
processing
Steaming/Curing
↓
Washing
↓
Drying
↓
Heat setting
↓
Finishing
↓
Inspection
↓
Packaging
Flow Chart of knit fabric wet processing
Grey fabric inspection
↓
Batching
↓
Fabric turning
↓
stitching
↓
Loading to the m/c
↓
Pre-treatment (Scouring & Bleaching)
↓
Dyeing
↓
Dewatering
↓
Drying
↓
Compacting & Calendaring
↓
Final inspection & packing
Wet Processing Chemicals and Auxiliaries
In practice the materials without which a process
cannot be completed are termed as “Chemicals”
and the other substances which facilitate or
improve the performance of that process are
termed as auxiliaries.Some commonly used
chemicals or auxiliaries are: acid, alkali, salt,
oxidizing agent, reducing agent, detergent, wetting
agent, levelling agent, softener, sequestering agent
etc.
 Pretreatment Processes
• Natural fibers and synthetic fibers contain primary
impurities that are contained naturally, and
secondary impurities that are added during
spinning , knitting and weaving processes. Textile
pretreatment is the series of cleaning operations.
All impurities which causes adverse effect during
dyeing and printing is removed in pretreatment
process. Pretreatment processes
include desizing,scouring and bleaching which make
subsequent dyeing and softening processes easy.
Flow chart of pretreatment processes with basic
objects
Grey fabric inspection Assessment of different types of faults.
Stitching Adding two or more fabric together.
Brushing To rise up the lying fibers.
Shearing and cropping Removal of excess thread from the Fabric.
Singeing Removal of short fibers from the fabric surface by burning.
Desizing Removal of sizing materials from fabric.
Scouring Removal of natural and foreign Materials.
Bleaching Destruction of natural coloring materials and improving
whiteness.
Mercerizing Treatment of cotton fabric in strong alkali under
tension.
1)Inspection of grey fabric:
The fabric found from loom pr
knitting machine is passed
through the inspection table
to find any kind of fault such
as end
breakage,picks,holes,neps
etc.Then fault free fabric is
selected for subsequent
processing.
Fabric inspection involves
three possible steps:
perching, burling and
mending.
2) Stitching: Sometimes the woven fabric from loom is
not of enough length as required and in such cases the
fabrics are joined to make it larger through stitching.
3) Shearing and cropping: Shearing and cropping
operation consists of cutting the loose strands of fibres
from either surface of a fabric or excess warp or weft
yarn on fabric edges with a sharp edged razor or
scissors.
4) Singeing: The verb ‘singe’ literally means ‘to burn
superficially’. Technically, singeing refers to the burning-
off of loose fibres not firmly bound into the yarn or
fabric structure. Singeing is an important part
of pretreatment. This is the burning off of protruding
fiber ends from the surface of the fabric. If not done
properly, unclear print patterns, mottled fabric surfaces
and pilling results.
5) Desizing: Sizing materials are added to increase the
strength of warp yarn.During wet processing,
various chemicals are applied and before starting
these processes we must be sure of maximum
absorption of these chemicals.The removal of sizing
materials is called desizing.The major methods of
desizing are-
a) Hydrolytic method: rot steeping,acid
steeping,alkali steeping,enzymatic steeping.
b) Oxidative method: chlorine,chlorite,bromite.
6) Scouring: The term ‘scouring’ applies to the removal of
impurities such as oils, wax, gums, soluble impurities
and sold dirt commonly found in textile material and
produce a hydrophilic and clean cloth. This process
essentially consists of treatment with soap or detergent
with addition of alkali. Depending on the fiber type
alkali may be weak(soda ash) or strong(caustic soda).
Objectives of scouring are-
• To remove natural as well as added impurities of
essentially hydrophobic character as completely as
possible
• To increase absorbency of textile material
• To leave the fabric in a highly hydrophilic condition
without undergoing chemical or physical damage
significantly.
7) Bleaching: Bleaching is chemical treatment employed
for the removal of natural coloring matter from the
substrate. The source of natural color is organic
compounds with conjugated double bonds , by doing
chemical bleaching the discoloration takes place by the
breaking the chromophore , most likely destroying the
one or more double bonds with in this conjugated
system. The material appears whiter after the
bleaching.
Bleaching agents are of two types: i)Oxidative agents:
are used for natural cellulosic fibers eg;
H2O2,Ca(OCl)Cl,NaOCl etc.
ii)Reductive agents: are mainly used for protein fibers
eg;H2,H2S,SO2,Na2SO4 etc.
8)Souring: After alkaline treatment a neutralization
process with weak acid is needed to remove excess
alkali.This process is known as ‘souring’.After
bleaching the material is treated with dilute H2SO4
or HCl or CH3COOH at room temperature.
9)Mercerization: Mercerizing is a chemical process
introduced by John Mercer in 1844 to improve the
luster and increase strength.In this process fabric is
treated with specific concentration of alkali(NaOH)
under tension.This process improves strength and
dye absorption of cotton fiber.
 Fig: Mercerization effect on cotton

10)Washing and rinsing: After every wet process

fabric is washed with hot and cold water for several
times. Sometimes soap solutions are also used for
washing.
11)Dewatering and drying: The fabric is then
dewatered followed by drying to remove water.
 Dyeing, Printing and Finishing
• Textiles are usually coloured to make them
attractive for aesthetic appeal. There are two ways
of adding colour to a textile substrate-printing and
dyeing. Printing adds colour to the surface in
discrete places, whereas dyeing completely covers
the substrate with colour.
• The process of coloration of textiles is termed as
dyeing.In this process different types of dyes are
used to produce different shades at different
fabrics.
 Theory of dyeing
The general theory of dyeing explains the
interaction between dye,fiber,water and
auxiliaries.The dyeing process is essentially a
distribution process.The dyeing process consists of
three stages which are:
Migration of dye from solution and adsorption on
the surface of fiber
Diffusion of dye into core of the fiber
Bonding between fiber and dye molecules by
covalent,ionic,van-der-walls,H-bond or other
physical forces
Classification of dyes based on application
• Direct
• Reactive
• Vat
• Azoic
• Sulphur
• Disperse
• Acid
• Basic
• Metal Complex
 Terms and Definition related to Dyeing
 Shade% : Shade% means the depth of color.It is
expressed as percentage(amount of dye in unit
weight of fabric).
Scale of shade%:
Light shade: upto 0.5% on the weight of fabric (owf)
Medium shade: 0.6-1.5%; owf
Dark shade:1.6% and above ;owf
Substantivity: Natural attraction between dyes and
fibers is termed as substantivity.This pheomena
influence the dye transfer from dye bath to textile
materials without any auxiliaries.
Affinity: is forced attraction between dyes and fibers.It
is a quantitative expression of substantivity.
Color strike: Initial absorption of dyes due to result of
substantivity is called the color strike.at the starting of
dyeing,the rate of dye transfer from solutin to textile
material is more than any other time.After 30
seconds,50% dyeing is completed.
Exhaustion: Total amount of dyes absorbed by the fiber
in a dye bath after the adsorption,sorption and
desorption is completed.It is expressed as E%.
Fixation: Total mount of dyes finally fixed with the fiber
after washing in a dyeing process.It is expressed by F%.
F%= E% - (washing+soaping+other treatments) loss
 Printing
Printing is the method of localized application of
dyes or pigments that produce particular color
effect on fabric according to design. Printing can be
described as the controlled placing of defined areas
of color on to a substrate. The colorant (dye or
pigment) must first be brought to the fiber surface
usually in the form of a printing paste.
 Printing Methods
The procedure of creating printing effect according to the design
by using different types of instrument is called method of printing.
The methods used for printing is given below:
a) Block
b) Flat press
c) Stencil/Spray method
d) Screen
e) Roller
f) Transfer
g) Flock
h) Engraved roller.
i) Burn-out
j) Photographic
k) Digital or ink jet
 Style of Printing
• Sometimes we use various types of technique in different
printing methods to perform the printing effect easily. This
effect of printing is called style of printing. Style of printing
mostly depends on the behavior of the dye and chemicals to be
printed. It can be divided into following groups:
a) Direct
b) Dyed
c) Azoic
d) Metal
e) Crepe or crepon
f) Discharge
i. White discharge
ii. Color discharge
g) Resist
h) Raised
 Printing Procedure
Selection of dye according to fabric

Select appropriate style of printing

Select appropriate method of printing

Prepare printing paste

Apply printing paste according to selected method

Fixing the printed fabric (Curing at high temperature)

 Finishing
The term finishing covers a wide range of processes.It is
usually the last stage of fabric procesing.The objective
of finishing process is:
• Modification of the fabric surface
• Value addition
• Improve aesthetics and functional ability
There are mainly two types of finishing:
• Mechanical Finishing: eg; Raising, Shearing,
Calendering, Embossing, Shrinking etc.
• Chemical Finishing: eg; Water repellent, Anti-pilling,
Anti-microbial, Parchmentizing, Soil repellent finishing
etc.