Abstract
Up to the present, fabric finishing methods have been mainly employed for the application of chitosan. However, the coated chitosan acid salt is prone to be detached from the fabric during the laundering process. In order to improve the wash fastness, chitosan treated fabrics are being subjected to thermal curing. In this study, chemical crosslinking reaction by epichlorohydrin was introduced to improve the problem of the thermal curing. An improvement of the wash fastness is expected since the coated chitosan component on the fabric become insoluble by the introduction of the crosslinking. The demerit of the single chitosan treatment (inferior handle due to the excessive stiffness, etc.) was supplemented by the application of chitosan-polyurethane mixture solution. The mixture ratios were adjusted to 1 : 0, 1 : 0.25, 1 : 0.5, 1 : 1, and 1 : 2 for the chitosan/PU mixture. Physical and mechanical properties of the finished fabric specimens were measured using the Kawabata Evaluation System(KES), and hand values were calculated accordingly based on the translational formulas.
