32—THE SURFACE ABRASION OF COTTON FABRICS AS SEEN IN THE SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPE

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Abstract
Experiments are described in which cotton fabrics at different stages of chemical processing were abraded to different extents on a Wira Abrasion Tester with three different abradants, namely, a smooth paper, a similar paper with a rough unfinished surface, and a standard worsted fabric. The three different plain-weave cotton fabrics selected were (a) desized and scoured, (b) bleached and mercerized, and (c) dyed and resin-treated. Scanning electron microscopy revealed that progressive chemical finishing, especially resin-finishing, reduced the abrasion-resistance of these fabrics. The rate of attrition of the cellulosic material at the surface of the fabric was much faster for rough paper than for a smoother type of paper abradant. The crossbred-worsted abradant was less severe than paper in its abrasive action. It also produced, in general, a more fuzzy fabric surface, with several loose fibre ends on the surface. Resin-treated fabrics had fewer of these loose surface fibres than the other two samples, particularly the scoured fabric, which had the most. In the resin-treated fabric, the abraded single fibre ends did not exhibit any twisting, whereas this characteristic feature was rather extensive in the non-resin-finished samples. The lack of twisting and rolling of the fibres probably arose from the constraints imposed by the resin crosslinks, which made the fibres more rigid and caused them to tend to fracture or rupture sharply rather than fibrillate over a somewhat extended length.