Sustainable Techniques in Fabric Finishing
In the labs of Cotton Incorporated, a nonprofit focused on using cottonseed oil-based finishing agents, Taylor Kanipe, a fourth-year PhD student at North Carolina State University, is working on a groundbreaking project. Alongside lab leader Richard Venditti, an expert on plant-based resources, they are developing a water- and wrinkle-resistant finish for clothing fabrics based on epoxidised cottonseed oil (ECSO).
The new finish is an alternative to formaldehyde or PFAS-based finishes currently used in textile treatments. Exposure to formaldehyde over time is a carcinogen, according to Taylor Kanipe. The ECSO treatment helps make the material resistant to wrinkling and forms a hydrophobic polymer that repels water.
Kanipe's team is developing a finishing process based on an emulsion of the epoxidised oil in water. This emulsion process would remove solvents from the process, specifically hexanes. Fabric treated with ECSO showed a contact angle of 125°, signalling a significant increase in water-repelling ability.
Cotton Incorporated has lab-scale and pilot-scale equipment that can test how water-based emulsions might work at a pilot scale. In the future, the North Carolina team wants to measure other performance factors in ECSO-treated cotton fabric, including tear strength and durability.
If all goes well and it is economically viable, the next step for the North Carolina team would be to test the process at a larger scale. Taylor Kanipe presented their work at the American Chemical Society's fall meeting in Washington, DC, and the potential for this environmentally friendly and safer fabric treatment is promising.
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