CA1070057A - Treatment of textile materials - Google Patents

Abstract

ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE

The present invention provides a method or mercerizing unregenerated cellulosic textile material derived from spun yarns comprising the steps of presenting the textile material for saturation with an alkaline swelling agent at a concentra-tion of 8.75% or more and at a temperature of 50°C or more for an immersion time of 10 seconds or less, and squeezing excess agent from the textile material, said agent being caustic soda, the material being cotton fabric. The invention also provides an apparatus for effecting the method which comprises means for saturating the textile material with the alkaline swelling agent whilst under controlled conditions of elevated temperature and minimum tension, heating means for controlling the temperature of saturation, means for squeezing off surplus treatment liquor, and means for controlling tension in the length direction between the said squeezing means and the entry to a subsequent controlled tension washing stage.

Description

~7~57 This invention relates to a method of and apparatus for the treatment of cellulosic textile materials by a variety of swelling agents such as certain alkalies and, salts.
One of the methods best known and universally practised is that ~ermed "Mercerisation" and a number of beneficial effects are produced amongst which are increases in the values of the properties of dyestuff affinity, tensile strength and lustre, and improved coverage of "dead cotton" and increased dimensional stability to laundering.
Mercerisation is commonly applied to textile materials of a cellulosic nature, especially cotton, linen and blends or mixtures of such with other natural or man-made fibres.
By "textile material" is to be understood herein and in the claims a wide variety of structures such as woven fabric, knitted ~abric, yarn, non-woven webs or cellulosic material reconstituted as ribbon or film, or structures comprising various combinations of the same.
To produce full mercerisation and the maximum development of the above properties, long established theory and practice has laid down the necessary chemical and process conditions, the process sequence and apparatus requirements.
Woven cotton fabric is the most common textile material which undergoes mercerisation and caustic soda is almost exclusively used as a swelling agent, being relatively cheap, capable of regeneration and widely available in various -~
physical forms and concentrations.
As an example therefore of the mercerisation method of long established practice, a fabric is impregnated with a solution of caustic soda of a strength between 45 TW to 60 TW
(26 Be to 33 Be or 20P6 to 27P6) for a period of not less than 45 seconds and at a temperature between 5C to 20C, The fabric is then washed with hot water and certain tension condi-tions .

~7(~57 imposed and maintained upon the fabric during the washing until the fabric contains less than 5% caustic soda. Thereafter, residual caustic soda may be finally removecL by further washing and or neutralisation wi.thout tension control.
For woven fabrics there are two main forms of appara-tus by which the aforesaid tension control is achieved and which have long been known to those skilled in the textile art.
One is known as chainless mercerising in which fabric shrinking during impregnation, squeezing out and subsequent washing is largely prevented; fabric may be prevented from shrinking lengthwise or in warp direction, or indeed may be beneficially extended, but the apparatus is generally incapable of preventing some shrinkage in width during processing and even less capable of extending a fabric in width direction where for any reason earlier width shrinkage has occurred.
The other form is known as chain mercerising and is distinguished by the use of apparatus for stretching the fabric .. .
in a weft direction, between impregnation and the washing stages in which the selected tension conditions are maintained as earlier described.
Mercerising of cotton yarn is also extensively carried out, the yarn being either wound in hank form, or in the form of a ribbon or rope of continuous threads. .
In common practice with fabric mercerisation, yarn mercerising has depended upon the impregnation with caustic soda of defined concentrations, specific times and low temperatures, .
and the imposition and maintenance of tension during the removal of caustic soda by washing.
There is a considerable latitude permitted in the ~.
concentration of caustic soda which is to be used.
Some of the effects of mercerisation be~in at as low a concentration of 20 TW (13Be or 3.75%) NaoH and the choice .

~7~C~57 of caustic concentration depends u~on the balance of resul-tant fabric properties which is re~uired ! and also cost.
The application and control of tension as earlier described is absolutely necessary to produce an increase in lustre and optimum in tensile strength.
Likewise, the time of impregnation and temperature of caustic soda have thus far been considered equally important in correct mercerisation.
Times of 45 to 60 seconds have become general practice in commercial mercerisation in spite of theoretical considera-tion that 3 minutes is required for the optimum effect if carried out on a single cotton hair.
As regards temperature, it is common practice to have the solutions of caustic soda at a low level. It was long the practice to refrigerate the caustic soda liquor to less than 10C and it is still common to cool it to less than 18C. -The basic process and apparatus has changed little since 1889/90. Meticulous and extensive research work into the theories underlying mercerisation was carried out especially in the years 1900-1925 and the boo]c "Mercerising" by J.T. Marsh, Chapman Hall, records summaries from much of such investigations.
Respecting the effect of temperature it i~ recorded that "when the temperature was increased the action of the alkali on the cotton was retarded" and also "the best effects are obtained with solutions of usual concentration at room temperatures: as the temperature increases the mercerising ~ffect diminishes in the case of NaoH".
All such work confirmed Mercer's original work in which caustic soda of the specified concentrations was used at 60F or under.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved mercerisation method and apparatus, whereby many of the h~ndica~s and difficulties associated with the traditional methods and apparatus are ~rea-tly reduced but without lessening the established benefits of the mercerisation process, while at the same time substantially improving other properties of the processed textile material and providing economic advantayes in the operation of the method and the apparatus.
We have now discovered quite unexpectedly that these advantages arise by employing caustic soda within the convention-al concentrations for "semi" and "full" mercerisation but at greatly elevated temperatures, preferably closely approaching the boiling point appropriate to the concentration of caustic soda being employed. Indeed the only handicap arising f:rom the ~ -use of such solutions at their boiling point is on account of safety and cost.
The time of treatment previously referred to is common-ly taken to be that from when the material is first immersed in caustic soda to the point when the impregnated textile material is first brought into contact with wash water. For chain mercerisers the necessary dwell time is obtained by the provision of timing drums which reduce the time a textile mater- ;
ial is actually immersed in the caustic soda solution.
Such timing drums are not usually employed in chain-less mercerisers and the bulk of the dwell time is that time of dwell within the caustic soda solution.
In the method of this invention it has been found that to ohtain all the expected benefits of mercerisation the total dwell time as defined above may be reduced to 15 seconds or less accordiny to the geometry of the textile material structure and the processing se~uence in which mercerisin~ takes place.
Fox example, it has been found that mercerisation according to this invention may be carried out on s~oured, .. , , ~ , .

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bleached or otherwise absorbent tex-tile material for a total dwell time of less than 10 seconds. Preferably, however, for economic and technical reasons the method of the invention is carried out on loomstate material, in which while it can be demonstrated that "wetting out" with the treatment liquor is less than 2 seconds, the actual dwell time is beneficially extended to 15 seconds.
However, it has also been found that for the enhance-ment of other properties not usually associated with normal mercerising and for the production of novel effects the "dwell times" may be extended in order to develop such properties without detriment to the established benefits.
We therefore depart from the traditional method of definlng dwell time and use two terms to define the total time between the first saturating with the treatmen-t liquor and first bringing into contact with wash water.
The first term is "immersion time" and is used herein and the claims to mean the time which elapses between the textile material first contacting the treatment liquor and the point at which the saturated material leaves the last saueezing means of the saturator, whereas the second term~ "reaction time", is used herein and the claims to mean the time elapsing between the saturated textile material leaving the squeezing means to the point when the said textile material first contacts the washing liquor.
Furthermore, while satura-tion within a treatment liquor is known to be improved by allowing the textile material to be so processed with the minimum of warp, and also of weft tension it is especially beneficial in the method of our inVention.
According to the present invention there is provided a method of mercerising cellulosic textile materials comprising : :

5~
the steps of presenting the -textlle material for saturation with an alkaline swelling ayent at a concentration ~ 8.75% or more and at a temperature of 50C or more :~or an immersion time of 60 seconds or less, and squeezing excess treatment liquor from the textile material.
Preferably, the immersion time is 10 seconds or less.
Preferably also, the method includes the step of controlling the textile material during the immersion time in respect of changes in length and/or in width.
Preferably also, the method further includes the steps, after squeezing, of delivering the textile material to a draw nip device, and controlling, between squeezing and the draw nip device, the textile material in respect of changes in length and/or width during a reaction time in excess of 1 second.
The alkaline swelling agent is preferably caustic soda at concentrations between 20TW and 69TW, or between 13~Be and 37Be, such hydrometer degrees being measured at a datum temperature of 15 - 20C, or the equivalent concentration of 8.75% to 31~, at temperatures in excess of 50C and preferably near to the boiling point appropriate to the chosen concentra-tion of treatment liquor for an immersion time which, as . .
aforesaid, need not exceed 10 seconds but has no de-trimental effect from a process viewpoint in exceeding this period.
The textile material may after leaving the draw nip device be subjected to a chain or chainless width-controlling washing step and thereafter be passed through a conventional multi-loop washer.
Additionally, the textile material may, between squeezing and reaching the draw nip device, be passed through an extended reaction time steam or liquid or steam above atmospheric pressure treatment chamber. l'he extended reaction time may be up to 10 minutes. Thus at this stage, the textile ., . . , . . - -'' :' . ' '' ' . ' '. ' , , ' ' . .

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material may be maintainedat an elevated temperature by treatmentwith steam vapour, either saturated atatmospheric pressure (100C) or sa-tura-ted at pressures above a-tmospheric pressure, or superheated steam atatmospheric pressure provided thatin the latter case the textile material is not reduced inmoisture contentto the e~tent thatany part of the surface configuration of the textilematerial is broughtnear to dryness point . The reaction time is as aforesaid between 1 second and 10 minutesdepending only on the concentration of caustic soda in use and the steampressure anclor-temperature employed.
The simplified method of the present invention there-fore provides the expected benefits of normal mercerisation produced from the immersion treatment as defined, these benefits including increases in the properties of dyestuff affinity, coverage of dead cotton, tensile strength, lustre and dimensional stability to laundering, and on the wide range of textile materials upon which we have carried out trials these benefits are not inferior to those obtained by normal .
mercerisation on similar fabrics.
In so far as the uniformity and thoroughness of our mercerisation treatment is vastly superior to that produced by normal mercerisation the method :is further advantageous, and has substantial benefits due to lower operating costs of production.
Some novel effects produced by the method of our invention, especially when employing a longer reaction time whilst maintaining the elevated temperature of the caustic saturated material may be summarised as follows.
In the case of a loomstate material so treated, and which then requires scouring and or bleaching to develop the desired e~fect, the time o~ scouring and or bleaching and the concentration of reagents or the times and temperature conditions . .

~7~57 used may be substantiall~ reduced, and in the case ~ some qualities of textile material which previously would have required a sequence of scour and bleach, -then the pre-scour may be eliminated. The mercerising method according to our invention is especially advantageous when combined with a rapid bleach peroxide process for a so called "single stage" bleach and is especially noteworthy when a high pressure rapid bleach is used.
As may be seen from one of our Examples set out here-after, only the high pressure bleach in conjunction with the process of this invention attains the necessary standard of cotton seed removal, degree of whiteness, and absorbency. This unexpected result showing a marked synergistic effect. ~lso whether mercerising according to our invention with immersion time plus minimum reaction time/ or with immersion plus extended reaction times on loomstate, scoured and or bleached textile material/ the material becomes much more pliable and less elastic than when such material is normally mercerising and the material may be stretched in length or width direction with less effort and to a greater degree with the production of a greater degree of lustre/ but especially with a greater degree of dimensional stability to lawldering/ than by normal mercerising.
The method of this invention also includes such tensions applied to warp and or weft directions as will "overstretch" the textile material to a degree not previously practicable in normal mercerisation.
It is of course one of the attributes of normal mercerisation that it improves the tensile strength of the treated texti.le material, and it is equally well known that mercerising for optimum strength demands a yarn and fabric construction which responds best to the methc?d: thus for different yarns and fabrics improvements in tensile strength by _g_ . :. .- , ' . ' . ' ~ . . . ' . .. :. ' .

~7~Si'7 normal mercerisation have been re~orted :~rom 10% to ~0%.
Experiments with the method of this invention indicate that the optimum degree of overstretching will improve the percentage gain in tensile strength of a ~iven yarn or fabric as obtained in normal mercerisation by a factor of 1.1 to 2Ø
Woven fabrics in the weft or width direction are especially vulnerable to washing shrinkage in subsequent laundering, because whereas potential warp shrinkage may be dealt with effectively by the compressive shrinking process at a later stage, the potential shrinkage in width of a final finished fabric is determined by the relationship between loom-state width and finished width and the nature of the processes that have occurred inbetween.
Conventional chain mercerisation is a means of obtain-ing the required weft dimensional stability with minimum loss of loomstate width, but we have found by experiment that the method of our invention will produce the required weft direction dimensional stability with even less loss in loomstate width of ` comparable materials.
It has also been found that the degree of overstretch-ing to produce stability with least loss in width is not the same as that required to produce optimum weft tensile strength.
Cellulosic textile material processed according to our invention, and particularly when processed in the loomstate condition possesses a greater receptivity to dyestuffs and to these chemicals associated with the production of the so called "easy care" finishes, which usually comprise a ~reatment with "cross linking'l resins, and which normally substantially improve the properties of crease resistance but impair the properties of tensile stren~th, tear stren~th and abrasion resistance, and we have found b~ experiment that textile materials mercerised according to our lnvention and subsequently "easy care" f:inished '.

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possess better physical characteris-tics for a similar level o:E
easy care properties, Also according to the present invention there is provided apparatus for carrying out the method according to the present invention and comprising means for saturating textile material with an alkaline swelling agent while under controlled conditions of elevated temperature and minimum tension, heating means for controlling the temperature o~ saturati.on, means for squeezing off surplus treatment liquor, and means for controlling tension in the length direction between the squeezing means and the entr~ to a subse~uent controlled tension washing stage.
Means may be provided whereby the length of reaction time of the saturated textile material at an elevated temperature may be extended between the means for squeezing off surplus alkaline liquor and the entry to a first washing stage by provlding a chamber within which the textile material is treated with steam at atmospheric pressures or higher. Furthermore the method of this invention may employ the pre~washing chamber disclosed in our British Patent Specification No. 1,142,385 and which is either used for the purpose described in that Specification or ut.ilised as a means of increasing the reaction time with or without the provision of steam hea-ting as already described. Thereupon the textile material is sub~ected to controlled washing by any of the conventional washing apparatus for that purpose such as stabilising units of a chainless mer-cerising range or a chain washing section of a chain mercerising machine, and thereafter the washing is completed in conventiona~
washing units.
By the method and apparatus of this invention textile materi.al so processed possesses properties not less than and in some respects superior to those achieved b~ conventiona mercerising at e~uivalent caustic soda concentration and a ~7~57 number of novel and valuable effects not associated with conventional mercerising may be produced according to selected conditions of the method and apparatus.
The method of this invention appears to he at var:iance with the fundamental theories concerning mercerisation which have been long established and part of standart text book teaching. This is not necessarily so while explanations at this stage are purely speculative it is considered useful to outline the present views as they do further explain the working of the method.
Caustic soda of semi and full mercerising concentra-tions as earlier defined, and at room temperatures or less is a liquid of high viscosity and high surface tension, both these properties increasing substantially as the concentration is increased.
Cotton yarn and woven or knitted material is highly hydrophobic unless subsequently scoured and or hleached to remove i~purities; and woven material may be exceptionally hydrophobic when the warp threads have been sized to assist ~0 weaving.
Normal mercerisation is essentially a swelling process combined wi~h controlled stretching, and the handicaps of the present conventional method lie chiefly in the difficulty of achieving uniform and thorough saturation with the alkaline liquor.
It is known that such effects are largely surface effects, the proportion being measurable by estimatiny the percentage of fully swollen fibres in a given sample of textile material.
It has also long been established that such effects are best produced on a cotton staple fibre of hi~h quality, this -usually being associated with the so called long staple quality in ~a!7~ S7 which the hair length is at a maximum.
It is likewise known that low quality cot-ton fibre, invariably of short hair length responded badly to the mercerisation process, especially in respect of the acquisition of a silk-like lustre.
Prior to the advent of man-made fibres the only source of lustrous silk-like material lay therefore in the normal mercerisation of high quality cottons and these were produced in great quantities for high quality apparel.
When such fabrics are treated with "resins" for the purpose of improving easy care properties of cotton the loss in physical characteristics was found unacceptable and as the coarser type cottons possess an intrinsically higher strength the latter type of cotton has become preponderant for such apparel, in spite of a less attractive appearance.
These lower quality cottons are characterized by a fibre hair of grossly irregular cross section shape, with a thick tough outer primary wall, and with a large proportion of immature growth cellulose in a sample of fibres.
As indicated, such quality of fibre responds badly to the normal mercerisation process even if the material has been previously rendered thoroughly absorbent to water.
The addition of surfa~e active wetting agents has been widely practised and whilst these assist substantially in wetting a material with the caustic soda liquor, the effect appears to be to achieve uniform surface-wetting of the fabric and yarn structure without materially assisting in the penetration of the caustic soda itself within the yarn and fabric structure and much less within the cotton hair itself.
The greater part of the research into the fundamental theories of normal mercerisation of cotton was carried out in a period when the ~ine quality cottons predominated and as recorded ~L~76~5~
these responded best to all aspects of the process.
Thus as the ob~ect of mercerlsation is primarily to achieve thorough and uniform swelling of the cotton hair itself this is difficult to achieve even with fine quality cotton, as in all types of yarn and fabric structure the greater the initial swelling of the structure the more difficult to penetrate beyond the surface structure.
It is known that caustic soda solutions at elevated temperatures cause less swelling of a cotton fibre hair than similar solutions at room temperature or less, this being a suggested reason advanced for mercerisation being .ineffective at temperatures above room temperatures, and conversely special patented effects have long been produced by extremely high swelling effects which occur at temperatures less than 5~.5.
However, in the operation of the method of this .:
invention, carried out on the coarser quality cotton fibre strucutres which now predominate, wetting out of the structure is almost instantaneous and caustic soda penetrates uniformly within the material struc ~ e and fibre substance, swelling of the yarn and structure is less, thereby causing less hindrance to continued pene.tration, and in the case of treatment carried out on "loomstate" or "grey" material, in which the primary wall of the cellulosic hair has not been ruptured by combined scour-ing and or bleaching processes, the swelling of the cellulosic inner substance is largely containèd within the primary wall, thus contributing less to a compacting of the material structure which as referred to is a hindrance to thorough penetration.
I-t is considered therefore that the balance of textile material properties so substantially improved by the method of this inven~ion arises because the sum of the degree of swelling of all the indi~idual hairs in a material structure brought abou~ prior to the tension controlled washing stage is much greater in ~:i37~D~57 this method th~n by normal mercerisation, in spite of the de~ree of swelling of an individual hair being less than by the normal process; and the subse~uent stretching staae is more efficient.
The -total effect of this process is therefore sub-stantially to upgrade the qualities of cotton textile materials now currently in volume production.
The following examples illustrate some aspects of our invention.
Example 1.
The effect of temperature of saturation with 50 TW
caustic soda on the "add-on" or weight of caustic socla liquid picked up by a loomstate cotton fabric under otherwise identical -saturation/squeezing conditions was recorded as follows:
Temperature Add on ~ by weight Normal mercerisation 20C 67%
Our method 95C 125%
Example 2.
. _ :
"Deconvolution" counts were measured on cross sections cut from the following fabrics.
~All cotton shirting poplin single/single).
1. Loomstate fabric 10.1

2. Bleached and normal mercerised fabric/
Commercially mercerised at 50 TW @ 18 C). 26.5

3, Mercerised by the method of this invention.
50TW elevated to 95C (Loomstate "mercerised"
and after-bleached~. 39.1 The lustre of fabrics 2 and 3 was the same.
Exam ~ .
Samples of all cotton poplin loomstate material were normally mercerised and mercerised hy the method of this invention, both samples being tensioned to the same loading in the width (weft) dimension, and the stretched widths recorded.

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Both samples were su~sequently laundered by -the test method BS (British Standards) 1118 and the respective widths again measured, these laundered widths representing zero residual shrinkage in the laundered samples.
A comparison o~ stretched widths and fully shrunk widths against the orlginal loomstate width gave the following comparisons.
Loomstate Stretched Laundered WidthsWidths Normal Mercerised 100 101.5 g5~7 Mercerised by the method of this invention 100 103.6 99.4 _xample 4.
Smooth drying behaviour o~ all cotton ~abrics without "easy-care" or resin ~inishing.
3 samples o~ all cotton poplin dress ~abric 1/1 poplin were assessed ~or smooth drying behaviour by visual comparison with a Monsanto scale after giving each sample a 5 minute mach-ine wash @ 40C and hanging to "drip-dry".
The samples had been processed as ~ollows:
K.B. Scoured, bleached, NOT mercerised.
K.B.M. Scoured, normally mercerised and bleached.
L4. Mercerised according to this invention, scoured and bleached.
Scale ~ssessment Comments K.M. 0 Myriad sharp creases K.B M. 1 More and sharper creases than L4.

Example 5.
Single stage peroxide bleaching.

:

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~7~57 Continuous lengths of an all cotton fabric were processed under the followin~ conditions:
Fabric M.
Mercerised in loomstate acco:rding to the .
method of this invention with 50TW caustic soda, elevated to 80C for an immersion time of 10 seconds with a reaction time of 35 seconds in a closed chamber but without additional heating.
Fabric B.
Mercerised in loomstate by a normal mercerising method with 50TW caustic soda at 18 C with a total "dwell time" of 45 seconds.
Fabrics M and B were then divided into lengths numbered 1 to 4 .
and given a series of separate single stage peroxide bleaches under the following conditions:
1. Open width pressure bleach ~-2~ hydrogen peroxide (plus appropriate additives) 2 minutes dwell 2 atmospheres pressure (133C) 2. Open width atmospheric bleach 3~ hydrogen peroxi.de (plus appropriate additi.ves) 3 minutes dwell at 100 C
3. As 2 for 5 minutes dwell at 100 C

4. As 2 for 10 minutes dwell at 100 C
The cotton fabric was of a type known as "Indian Head" plain weave of ~merican medium staple length fibre with such amount of cotton seed present as would normally require a 2 stage sequence of a caustic alkaline scour followed by a peroxide 0 bleach to achieve the necessary qual.ity results.
The processed samples were then tested in the labora-tory as follows:

. -17- :

1~7~57 For: Whiteness - by Harrison Reflectometer Z = 88 Absorbency - ArA~T~C~C~ Method 79~1972 Fluidity - BS 2610 The results were found to be as follows:
Whiteness Reflectance Absorbency Fluidity Ml 75.8 3.2 3.62 M2 75.0 4.2 2.96 M3 75.1 5.9 3.31 M4 77.0 10.0 3.74 Bl 66.0 10.0 3.85 B2 60.0Greater than 300 4.19 B3 67.0Greater than 300 6.36 B4 72.4Greater than 300 5.25 It will be observed that only pressure bleaching produced a fabric with an absorbency of 10 or under, and only pressure bleaching in combination with fabric M produced a satisfactory degree of Whiteness, and visually seed removal was complete on all M series, whereas seed was markedly present on Bl and B2 and still discernible on B3 and B4.
~
Continuous lengths of fabric comprising cotton with 2/3 polyester fibre in blend, and 100~ cotton containing a proportion'of multi-coloured yarns were (a) normally mercerised (b) mercerised according to the method of this invention to compare the effect of cold caustic soda with caustic soda at elevated temperatures.
Both types of ~abric behaved identically under conditions (a~ and (b) whether assessed visually or -by various methods of test.
Embodiments of ~pparatus suitable for carrying out the new mercerising method in accordance with the present .

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invention will now be described, with reference -to the accompany-ing diagrams, in which:-Fig. 1 illustrates the basic saturation/squeezesequence allied to the necessary tension controls, and followed by conventional width controlled washing, whether chain or chainless, and the final multi-box washers;
Fig. 2 illustrates the addi.tion oE a chamber in which an extended reaction time takes place, followed by the two conventional types of washing as Fig. l;
Fig. 3 illustrates the addition o~ a chamber in which an extended reaction time takes place at temperatures relevant to pressure above atmospheric pressure.
All components of the various apparatus are long-established and well known to those skilled in the textile art and for this reason they have been shown in extreme diagrammatic form.
In Fig. 1, the fabric is indicated by reference F and it is fed with overfeed indicated by arrow OF through a tank 10 containing caustic soda solution of concentration of 8.75% or more at a temperature of 50C or more. The fabric F travels from an entry nip 11 in a sinuous path round large diameter driven rolls 12 to a heavy mangle squeeze nip 13 which provides a datum speed indicated by arrow D. Fabric F is then passed through a draw nip 14 and is stretched between nip 13 and nip 14 as indicated by arrow S. The nips 11, 13 and 14 are driven by a positive infinitely variable drive to indicate percentage loss/gain in fabric length. Automatic level and tempera-ture controls are provided for the tank lOo The draw nip 14 is followed by a conventional width-control chain or chainless washer 15 and then by a conventional multi-loop ~asher 1~).
The apparatus of Fi~. 2 is identical with -that of Fig.

1 save that between nips 13 and 14 there is an extended reaction 107~ 57 time chamber 17 for steam or liquid txeatment and in which the fabric F is conducted in an elongate sinuous path over rollers 18. Intermediate spacer rods or rollers are indicated at 19.
~ashers 15 and 16 are again provided.
The apparatus of Fig. 3 varies from that of Fig. 2 in that chamber 17 is replaced by a reaction time chamber 20 with entry and exit seals 21 and 22 in which the fabric F is treated by steam above atmospheric pressure. The chamber 20 may be a straight pass as shown or of the roller type for ultra short reaction times, or for extended reaction times it may be a conveyor or roller bed conveyor on which the fabric F lies re-laxed provided that subsequent appropriate lengthway stretch devices are provided before entry to washer 15.
All the apparatus exemplified in Figs. 1 to 3 may be operated as self contained units or in line with open width scouring/bleaching ranges.
Apparatus has not been illustrated for the continuous mercerising of yarn by our invention, but this may be carried out either on a single yarn basis or on a sheet of parallel warp way yarns, in which the apparatus would provide the same sequence as that described for fabric, viæ. relaxed saturation/
squeeze, stretch (with or without extended reaction time) and followed by washing under controlled lengthway tension until the caustic content of the yarn is below 5~ thereafter followed by normal final washing to neutrality.

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Claims (11)

THE EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION IN WHICH AN EXCLUSIVE
PROPERTY OR PRIVILEGE IS CLAIMED ARE DEFINED AS FOLLOWS:

1. A method of mercerizing unregenerated cellulosic textile material derivated from spun yarns comprising the steps of presenting the textile material for saturation with an alka-line swelling agent at a concentration of 8.75% or more and at a temperature of 50°C or more for an immersion time of 10 seconds or less, and squeezing excess agent from the textile material, said agent being caustic soda, the material being cotton fabric.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1, comprising the step of controlling the textile material during the immersion time in respect of changes in length and/or in width.

3. A method as claimed in claim 1, comprising the steps, after squeezing, of delivering the textile material to a draw nip device, and controlling, between squeezing and the draw nip device, the textile material in respect of changes in length and/or width during a reaction time in excess of 1 second.

4. A method as claimed in claim 1 in which the alka-line swelling agent is caustic soda at a concentration between 8.75% and 31%.

5. A method as claimed in claim 1 in which the temp-erature is just below the boiling point of the selected concen-tration of alkaline swelling agent solution.

6. A method as claimed in claim 3 in which the reac-tion time does not exceed 10 minutes.

7. A method as claimed in claim 1, comprising, between squeezing and arrival at the draw nip device, subjecting the textile material, while it is saturated with the caustic soda, to a treatment step for intensifying the action of the caustic soda, said treatment step being selected from treating the tex-tile material at atmospheric pressure with saturated steam at 100°C, or with saturated steam at above atmospheric pressure and at temperatures in excess of 100°C.

8. A method as claimed in claim 7 comprising, after the draw nip, subjecting the textile material to width-controlled washing and thereafter substantially relaxed washing.

9. A method of mercerizing unregenerated cellulosic textile material derivated from spun yarns comprising the steps of presenting the textile material for saturation with an alkaline swelling agent at a concentration of 8.75% or more and at a temperature of 50°C or more for an immersion time of 10 seconds or less, and squeezing excess agent from the textile material, said agent being caustic soda, the textile material being a fabric containing cotton.

10. A method as defined in claim 9, wherein the fabric is a mixture of cotton and polyester.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the fabric is cotton with 2/3 polyester fiber in blend.

.