THERMOANALYTICAL STUDY OF DURABLE PRESS REACTANT LEVELS ON COTTON FABRICS .2. FINISHES BASED ON DMDHEU

Cotton printcloth has been treated with five low- and nonformaldehyde finishes at multiple treatment levels. In Part I, two polycarboxylic a cids, butanetetracarboxylic and citric, catalyzed with sodium hypophos phite produced the nonformaldehyde fabric finishes. Three formaldehyde -based finishes have been produced with 1,3-dimethylol-4,5-dihydroxyet hyleneurea (DMDHEU) catalyzed with magnesium chloride/citric acid and are the subject of Part II. Differential scanning calorimetric and the rmogravimetric analyses are performed and the results compared with th ose of untreated and treated controls. Thermal parameters and various parameter ratios are analyzed for progressive changes as agent/catalys t levels increase. Thermal profiles of catalyst controls indicate that the catalyst is a substantial contributor to thermal parameters. We c an distinguish between the low and nonformaldehyde Dp finishes, betwee n the three DMDHEU-based finishes, and between the four finish levels. Finish level is the most difficult. Three dimensional comparison grap hs of three parameters chosen by means of stepwise discriminate analys es allow finish level assessments to within 2%. The preponderance of e vidence after parameter-by-parameter comparisons correctly assigns fin ish level. A current goal of our research is to identify unknown durab le press finishes on cotton fabrics using only thermal analytical tech niques. Quality control applications relative to finish and finish lev el are clearly possible at this time. This study has brought us much c loser to realizing our primary goal of finish identification using onl y thermoanalytical procedures.