Textile Contamination Removal

by Hira Mehfooz, Dep. Research & Development, Masood Textile Mills.

The level of contamination decides the quality of yarn and its Removal of Polypropylene from the knitted fabrics
essential properties such as length, strength, fineness. In this con-
text, contamination can take place during any process, that is The process for the removal of Polypropylene from the knit-
from the farm picking to the ginning stage. Contamination, even ted fabric is explained as under:
if it is present in a single component of fiber, causes down grad- Fabric Specification: The Fabric containing Polypropylene
ing of yarn, fabric or apparel or even the total rejection of an contamination: Bleached (White).
entire fabric. Therefore, the relationship between growers, gin- Contents: 56/38/6 Cotton / Polyester (Coolmax) / Lycra
ners, merchants and textile and clothing mills can be jeopardized. Effects of Polypropylene on the white fabric:
This paper focuses on contaminants and its effects on supply
chain and outlines preventive measures to eliminate contami- Red, green spots on white fabric as
nants. This major problem of contamination can be handled by polypropylene itself has different colors. The
using contamination cleaning methods, especially for polypropylene cannot be dyed with common
Polypropylene. For example, at Masood Textile Mills in Product methods, due of its high crystallinity and non-
Development Department under the guidance of Mr. Shafqat polar aliphatic structure, which does not contain any reactive site
Mehmood (Sr. Manager PD), we have managed a system for the to react with dye molecules. Therefore, the contaminated area
removal of Polypropylene as a contaminant from the cotton/ will remain undyed, here Masood Textile Mills has developed the
polyester (Coolmax) / Lycra blended fabric (White) by using an need to remove or dissolve that portion from the white fabric.
Organic Solvent Apparatus and material required include contaminated
without affecting fabric, water, detergent for washing and
the fabric proper- organic solvent.
ties. (1,1,2,2 Tetrachloroethane C2H2Cl4)
Contamination Procedure Structural formula
Contamination 1. Take contaminated fabric sample (bleached knitted) containing spots
basically is a pres- of Polypropylene and make solution of 1,1,2,2 Tetrachloroethane
Fabric Fragments Strings Chemicals Organic Matter Inorganic Matter
ence of extrane- as: 70% Water, 30% 1,1,2,2 Tetrachloroethane.
ous, materials, that 3. Run the machine at 80°C for 20 minutes and upon completion of the

Spinning
Woven pieces
renders a sub- specified time, wait for a while in order to cool the fabric. Afterwards
Plastic films Oil Birds Feathers
Jute Grease Grass / Weeds
Rust stance or prepara- rinse and dry the fabric.
Dyed Cotton Rubber Paper
Wool hat & Tar Metal Plates 6. The analysis of the fabric shows that polypropylene was totally
Gloves Making
Leather
Human/
Metal Wires tion impure or
Polypropylene Sprays Animal hairs removed, as there are no spots on the treated fabrics.
Nylon Straps harmful in the 7. The treated fabric contains the toxicity of 1,1,2,2 Tetrachloroethane
Fig. 1: Contamination sources. same way mixing and this amount of Tetrachloroethane determined in the fabric by
of any irrelevant gas chromatography was as under:
Component or
material with main product at any level of collection, production, Sample Description 1,1,2,2 Tetrachloroethane (%)
Bleach knitted fabric2.1
handling, storage, processing in the yarn manufacturing process.
9. In this context, Masood has adopted a process for the removal of
Classifications of contaminants as shown in the fig.1.
tetrachloroethane without using any organic solvent. The emulsifica-
Causes of Contamination Textile tion technique was employed in order to make process more feasible
and less toxic.
The following are the some of the reasons behind high con- 10. The different wetting/emulsifying agents were selected to remove
tamination during process in textile. 1,1,2,2 Tetrachloroethane from the fabric. The fabric was treated
with different aqueous concentrations of selected wetting agents
1. Hand picking method of fibers.
under different treatment conditions. The residual 1,1,2,2
2. Usage of fertilizer bags (cloudy). Tetrachloroethane after treatment was re-evaluated by gas chro-
3. Improper working methods. matographic technique.
4. Packing of fibers not in balanced way. The treatment details and results are tabulated as shown in this table:
5. Wrong codification after packing process. Phosphate
Rucogen WBL Felosan RG-N
Effects of contamination Wetting Agents Detergent/
(Rudolf GmbH) (CHT GmbH)
wetting agent
1. It causes wastage of dyeing materials and requires extra Wetting agent used (%) 3 0.4 3
efforts at cleaning process that inflates cost. Running Temp.(oC) 60 60 60
2. The quality and value is still affected even after cleaning left- Running Time (min) 30 30 30
Washing cycles 1 1 1
over embedded pieces of contamination in yarn.
Tetrachloroethane conc. after
3. Fabric appearance produced Not detected 0.6 Not detected
treatment
with contaminated yarn will be
Conclusion
poor and prone to rejection.(See
fig.2) Fig.2: Polypropylene contami- The above observations show that Tetrachloroethane is pres-
4. Dyeing affinity of contamination nants in Knitted fabric. ent in the treated fabric in objectionable amount i.e. 2.1% by
is different from dyeing affinity weight of the fabric. The proper treatment of the fabric is required
of fabric, which leads to uneven prior to further processing or finishing. Therefore, the best wash-
fabric coloration. As shown in ing treatment results were obtained by using phosphate deter-
fig.3. (Polypropylene remain Fig.3: Uneven Fabric gent/wetting agent (laboratory developed) and Felosan RG-N by
Coloration due to
undyed) using the ratio of 3% at 60oC followed by water rinsing.
Polypropylene.

PTJ February 2012 49