The Dissolution of Wool in Alkali Solution and the Changes of Fiber Structure and Performance

摘要

The dissolution of wool in 4 g/L NaOH solution at 65 °C is used to be a standard test method for the damage of wool in the processing. This suggests that alkali can cause wool keratin and the linkage between molecule chains broken. Fortunately, the dissolution of wool at low temperature is mainly limited on the surface scales because the swelling of wool in water solution at lower temperature is quite small. In this paper, the dissolution of wool in alkali solution and the changes of the fiber structure and performance at different temperature were investigated. The results showed clearly that the wool surface keratin could be dissolved in different extent with the varying of the temperature and this could be applied to develop an AOX free modification of wool for shrinkage resistance.