Role of Acrylic Copolymers in Designing Environmentally Friendly Technologies for Finishing Textile Materials

We present the results of studies aimed at designing environmentally friendly technologies for printing and final finishing of textile materials. The technologies are based on the specific properties of carboxylated acrylic copolymers that can increase the viscosity in an alkaline medium. The obvious connection between negative changes in nature and the anthropogenic impact of industrial plants on the environment has raised general concerns, and requires solving a number of problems involved in the indicated issue. The negative impact of industrial activity on natural processes and living organisms is due not only to its wasteful management but also to shortcomings in the production processes employed [1]. Within the broad range of sectors in the national economy, the textile industry makes an appreciable contribution to environmental pollution and pollution of water and air basins. Considering this fact, improving processes in dyeing-and-finishing departments and designing environmentally friendly technologies for finishing textile materials is a timely and important direction in solving the important problem of reducing the level of toxicological and ecological stress on the environment and designing environmentally friendly textiles meeting international safety and quality standards. In this paper, we present the results of studies to develop environmentally friendly printing and final finishing using acrylic latexes and water-soluble copolymers of domestic manufacture (Nord Sintez LLC). In this case, improvement of the environmental situation is achieved as a result of the following: – using few-component pigment compositions, not containing toxic crosslinking agents; – improving the degree of utilization of reactive dyes and reducing their desorption during washing of printed material, with a corresponding decrease in their input into wastewaters from the dye-and-finishing plant; – designing low-formaldehyde and formaldehyde-free coupling agents, ensuring permanence and high resistance of the effects of final finishing to organic solvents. In the first step, we evaluated the properties of aqueous dispersions of acrylic and styrene-acrylic latexes of domestic manufacture, with the objective of using them as binders in the composition of pigment printing inks. The acrylic latex recommended for use is a copolymer of butyl acrylate, methyl methacrylate, acrylonitrile, and acrylic acids with the optimal ratio of “hard” and “soft” monomer units in the macromolecular chain, which ensures the needed combination of strength and elasticity of the polymer film. Such films are distinguished by high weathering resistance and form coatings that do not yellow over time, in contrast to films based on diene structures which tend to oxidize [2]. We established that an aqueous dispersion of acrylic carboxyl-containing latex MN-10 has low surface tension (36.7 mN/m), comparable with its value for divinyl nitrile latexes BNK 40/4 and BNK 20/35 (respectively 38.4 and 33.1 mN/m). The effective wettability and penetration of cellulose-containing fabrics by printing compositions based on this latex promotes stronger fixation of the pigment particles to the fiber substrate. The light scattering method has shown (Fig. 1) that the average size of MN-10 latex globules is not more than 100 nm, which is responsible for the high degree of homogeneity of the films and their stronger fixation to the polymer substrate [3].