THERMOANALYTICAL AND FT-IR CHARACTERISTICS OF FABRICS FINISHED WITH BTCA CHLOROACETATES .2. FT-IR IDENTIFICATION OF VOLATILE DECOMPOSITION PRODUCTS/

Cotton fabrics esterified with polycarboxylic acids possess excellent smooth drying properties and have good strength retention. The best re sults have been obtained with catalysts of inorganic phosphorus acids, especially sodium hypophosphite monohydrate (SHP). However, because S HP is fairly expensive and there is some concern that phosphorus from finishing plants would contribute to the pollution of rivers and strea ms, other catalyst systems are under investigation as substitutes. Thi s paper reports on the characterization of sodium salts of chloroaceti c acids as catalysts for esterification crosslink finishing of cotton with 1,2,3,4-butanetetracarboxylic acid (BTCA). In this part of the st udy, we report on FT-IR identification of the volatile products formed on thermal decomposition of fabrics treated with BTCA and chloroaceta te catalysts. HCl does not appear to be released at any temperature, a nd chloroform, which is a decomposition product when trichloroacetate is used as the catalyst, is formed only above curing temperatures.