Application of Spectrophotometric Methods in Assessing the Influence of Alkaline Treatment on the Degree of Crosslinking of Cotton Cellulose with BTCA

Polycarboxylic acids appear to be the most promising nonformaldehyde crosslinking agents to replace the traditional, mostly formaldehyde-based, compounds. The most effective among these acids is 1,2,3,4-butanetetracarboxylic acid (BTCA). In this study, a comparison was made of the crosslinking effect on mercerized and on unmercerized as well as with different BTCA mass fractions crosslinked cotton fibres using FT-IR spectroscopy, the methylene blue method and water retention determination. The main purpose of the research was to evaluate how the structural changes of mercerized cotton (transformation of cellulose I into cellulose II) influence the crosslinking of cellulose fibres. Key words BTCA crosslinking mercerization cotton cellulose * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. (E-mail