Abstract
•Cotton fabric was bleached using amine salt-activated sodium chlorite.•Triethanolamine hydrochloride was found to be the best activator.•Bleached fabrics have improved whiteness index and reasonable tensile strength.
In this paper triethanolamine salt-catalyzed sodium chlorite bleaching system was used to bleach plain weave cotton fabric in one step. Different triethanolamine salts, including those derived from organic acids and mineral acids were tried for activating sodium chlorite decomposition during the bleaching reaction. All bleaching trials were carried out keeping fixed sodium chlorite concentration. The concentration of triethanolamine hydrochloride, as an example for the triethanolamine salts was varied to show the effect of the activator concentration on the final fabric degree of whiteness. The optimum triethanolamine hydrochloride concentration, required for activating sodium chlorite decomposition was found to be 10mmol/l and based on that, this concentration was applied for other organic and inorganic triethanolamine salts to show the effect of nature of the activator on the final degree of whiteness. The results showed that salts prepared using mineral acids have activation potential better than those prepared using organic acids.