INVESTIGATION OF THE BULK, SURFACE AND TRANSFER PROPERTIES OF CHLORINE BLEACHED DENIM APPAREL AT DIFFERENT CONDITION

Abstract

Oxidizing bleaching agent (calcium hypochlorite or bleaching powder) is widely used in the apparel washing plant as a color removing and cost effective finishing chemical. As the faded denim or old look denim is preferred by the today’s youth it has become a crucial issue for the technologists to modify denim apparel to fulfill the demand of existing trend. Calcium hypochlorite (Ca(OCl)Cl) fades the denim effectively but a significant changes are happened in the properties of the denim apparel. The main objective of this paper was to investigate the changes of bulk, surface and transfer properties of denim apparel after the chlorine bleach action at varying length of washing time (10,15 and 30 min) with fixed concentration and temperature (50°C). These properties are related to the performance of the end product. 100% cotton indigo dyed 2/1 twill denim apparel was treated with 5gm/l (Ca(OCl)Cl). To determine the end use performance of the modified denim the changes of tensile strength, stiffness, dimensional stability (bulk properties), hand roughness, rubbing fastness (surface properties), air permeability, water repellency (transfer properties) of the modified denim apparel were evaluated. It has been monitored from the experimental data that the bulk properties play down but the surface properties have a noticeable improvement after the chlorine bleach action. It is also noticed that washing time has a significant effect on air permeability of the treated denim apparel.