AN FT-IR AND RAMAN-SPECTROSCOPY STUDY OF ELECTROCHEMICALLY MODIFIED WOOLEN FABRIC

A woollen fabric sample has been oxidized by electrogenerated oxygen s pecies produced at a platinum electrode. This treatment produced three visually discoloured or bleached regions. The areas of the fabric tha t were located close to the electrode surface showed dark brown discol oration. On either side of this region, bleaching of the wool was appa rent to various degrees. Fabric well removed from the electrode appear ed unaffected by the treatment, and was used as a reference. Such samp les were analysed by the complementary techniques of FT-IR and FT-Rama n spectroscopy, and the pattern recognition method of principal compon ents analysis (PCA). The samples were successfully separated into thre e groups on the basis of the levels of known oxidation intermediates f rom cystine and other readily oxidizable amino-acid residues present i n wool-keratin.