Improvements in or relating to processes of reducing the shrinkage of woollen and worsted fabrics and yarns, and the improved woollen and worsted fabrics resulting therefrom

摘要

The tendency of fabrics consisting wholly or partly of wool to shrink is reduced by impregnating the fabric with 8 to 16 per cent of a water-soluble melamine-aldehyde condensation product or an alkyl ether thereof, curing the condensation product and subsequently moistening the treated fabric and removing the residual stretch produced during manufacture by steaming and allowing it to relax or by a heating and mechanically compressing operation. The condensation product, e.g. tetramethylol melamine, is applied to the fabric as an aqueous solution by spraying, dipping or padding and to the solution a curing catalyst or accelerator such as diammonium hydrogen phosphate, urea oxalate, diammonium phthalate, ammonium chloride, zinc chloride and ethyl ammonium phosphate may be added. The pH of the solution is preferably adjusted to 7 or slightly higher. Resins such as urea-aldehyde and polystyrene may be used in combination with the melamine-aldehyde condensation product.