ANTIOXIDANT-INDUCED YELLOWING OF TEXTILES

The yellowing of white and pastel coloured textiles and garments has b een a problem for many years in the textile industry. In the last 15 y ears much evidence has been published which suggests that a large prop ortion of storage yellowing is attributable not to the yellowing of fi bre substrate or textile finish but to the yellowing of phenolic antio xidants which migrate onto the textiles from polyethylene and polyprop ylene packaging. These mobile phenolic compounds interact with atmosph eric pollutants, particularly oxides of nitrogen, to give yellow compo unds. A brief outline of the problems of yellowing is given, together with the identification of the yellow substances produced by BHT (2,6- di-tert-butyl-4-methyl phenol) and possible mechanisms of their format ion. Prophylactic measures that can be taken by the garment manufactur er and finisher to prevent or minimise yellowing are also discussed