US3458273A - Treatment of textiles - Google Patents

Description

United States Patent 3,458,273 TREATMENT OF TEXTILES John William Case, Norman Frederic Crowder, and Wilfred Arthur Stephen White, Runcorn, England, assignors to Imperial Chemical Industries Limited, Millbank, London, England, a corporation of Great Britain No Drawing. Filed May 12, 1966, Ser. No. 549,469 Claims priority, application Great Britain, May 24, 1965, 21,905/ 65 Int. Cl. D06l N02 US. Cl. 8-139 6 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE There is provided a process for scouring textile materials by passing the textile materials through a bath of a halogenated organic solvent and thereafter freeing the textiles from adherent solvent by evaporation thereof. The improvement in the process comprises passing the textile materials through the process in multi-layer form. The textiles may suitably be in the form of sheets of webs, either woven or non-woven, and suitably the evaporation of the solvent is accomplished with hot water or steam.

This invention relates to a process for the treatment of textile materials, more particularly for the scouring of textile materials with organic solvents.

It is known, for example from UK. specification Nos. 812,894 and 916,338 to treat textile materials with organic solvents, particularly chlorinated hydrocarbon solvents, in order to clean them. This procedure is sometimes termed a solvent-scouring treatment.

In such processes the textile material is passed through the organic solvent under conditions which enable contamination to be removed from the textile material, and then the treated textile material, laden with solvent, is passed through an apparatus in which the solvent is evaporated and recovered. This final stage, termed the fiash-ofi stage may be carried out using hot water or steam.

It has long been a problem in processes for the treatment of textile materials to design apparatus and techniques which enable the textile materials to be treated at a sufficiently rapid rate to give a plant throughput sufficient to make the process economically attractive. This is especially important when the textile materials are in the form of woven fabrics which have to be subjected to a succession of operations in turn, and the slowest process stage dictates the maximum speed for the whole series of treatments.

In order to secure high throughput, the usual method employed is to carry the textile through the plant at as high a speed as possible, but considerations such as plant construction problems and treatment times usually impose limitations on the speeds which can be used.

We have now found that solvent-scouring techniques can be used to produce very high throughputs of textile materials by putting the textile materials in multi-layer form through a solvent-scouring process. This is possible in the case of solvent-scouring because the organic solvent can penetrate quite satisfactorily through the various layers of textile material, whereas none of the conven tional aqueous scouring techniques can do so.

Thus according to our invention we provide an improved process for the scouring of textile materials which comprises passing the said textile materials in multi-layer form through a bath of an organic solvent, which removes grease and contamination from the textile materials, and thereafter freeing the textile materials from adherent solvent.

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The solvents and the techniques which can be used may be in particular any of those described more fully in UK. specifications Nos. 812,894; 916,338; 747,481; 749,705; 812,893; 844,943; 825,402 and patent applications Nos. 38,216/64 and 9,977/65. Thus the solvent may be in particular trichloroethylene, perchloroethylene, 111:2- trichloro-l:2z2-trifluoroethane or mixtures thereof. The choice of solvent to be used depends very much upon the textile material concerned, and the solvent is best chosen so that its solvent properties and its boiling point are such that its use will not adversely affect the textile material.

Apart from the feature that the textile material is carried through the process in multi-layer form, the process of the present invention is essentially the same as those already known. The inventive feature lies in the fact that only the solvent-scouring technique permits the use of multiple layers, and that the previously known aqueous scouring techniques fail completely when used with anything other than single layers of textile materials and with long residence times because of the severely limited powers of penetration of such systems.

Textile materials which may be treated by the process of our present invention include those made of cotton and other cellulosic materials, wool, linen, regenerated cellulose, and a variety of other natural and artificial materials including nylons, polyester, polypropylene, esterified cellulosic materials, such as acetate rayon, and acrylic fibres, and mixtures of natural and/or artificial materials. The textile materials may be in the form of webs or sheets, either woven or non-woven, including knitted goods, as may be desired. The technique is useful for treating textile materials which are of too light a weight (or of such construction) to be passed through a machine at high speed at open width without considerable risk of damage. The process can also be applied to the use of multiple layers of heavier materials purely for the purpose of scouring high throughput.

What We claim is:

1. In a process 'for the scouring of textile materials which comprises passing the said textile materials through a bath of a halogenated organic solvent which removes grease and contamination from the textile materials, and thereafter freeing the textile materials from adherent solvent by evaporation of the solvent, the improvement comprising passing the said textile materials through the said process in multi-layer form.

2. Process as claimed in claim 1 wherein the textile materials are treated in open width.

3. The process of claim 1 wherein the said textile materials are in the form of webs or sheets.

4. The process of claim 1 wherein the said textile materials are of too light a weight or of such a construction that the said textile materials could not be passed through the process at high speeds at open width without considerable risk of damage.

5. The process of claim 1 wherein the evaporation of the said solvent is carried out by using hot water or steam.

6. The process of claim 3 wherein the said textile materials are woven or non-woven or knitted goods.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,176,705 10/1939 Derby 8139.1 2,790,699 4/1957 White 8--139.1 XR 3,042,479 7/ 1962 Lawrence et al 8-142 MAYER WEINBLATI, Primary Examiner US. Cl. X.R. 8--137, 139.1