Development of brightness on handmade woolen carpets

Abstract

A process for the achievement of brightness on handmade carpet made from coarse wool fibre considering chlorine based oxidation of wool has been developed. Box-Behnken design of experiment is adopted for three factors (sulphuric acid, sodium hypochlorite and sodium hydroxide concentrations) at three levels for computation of responses like whiteness index, brightness index, and wear and abrasion loss. The optimized conditions are determined by multiple regression analysis aided by computer generated ANOVA analysis of raw data and contour graphs corresponding to various response surface models. The optimum conditions for process parameters are found to be 10 g/L sulphuric acid, 4.5g/L sodium hypochlorite and 10g/L sodium hydroxide. The handle, softness, whiteness, lustre and the anti-shrinkage properties of treated wool fibre improve in comparison to those of original fibre.