Mechanism Analysis of Soft Finishing Agent

1. The importance of softening agent

After the fabric is pre-treated and a series of dyeing and finishing additions, the natural oil and wax are removed, which often reduces its original smoothness and makes the hand feeling rough. In addition, some fabrics need to undergo high temperature treatment, such as resin finishing, heat setting of synthetic fiber, steaming and puffing of acrylic fiber, and pigment printing, etc., which will also make the fabric hand feeling rough and hard.

Most synthetic fabrics and pure wool and cotton velvet fabrics have problems such as hardening, rough hand feeling and uncomfortable wearing after washing or soap washing. In order to overcome this shortcoming, softening agent is needed to improve these problems. With the development of synthetic fiber fabrics, people have increasingly urgent requirement for fabric softening, and softening agent is particularly important. The following content will give you a detailed explanation of the current status and development of softening agent for fabrics.

2. How does the soft finishing agent work?

Soft finishing agent is a finishing agent that produces a soft touch by reducing the frictional resistance between fibers or between fibers and skin. The frictional resistance between fabrics includes static frictional resistance and dynamic frictional resistance. The former refers to the force that the fiber needs to overcome when the fiber is in contact with the fiber surface, and the latter refers to the force that needs to overcome to keep the fiber moving after it moves. Corresponding to static and dynamic friction, the related coefficients are called static friction coefficient (μs) and dynamic friction coefficient (μa) respectively. In the use of soft finishing agents, both static and dynamic friction coefficients are required to be reduced, and static friction coefficients are reduced more.

Fiber is a material with a large specific surface area composed of linear polymer materials. When the fabric fiber absorbs the softening agent, the interfacial tension of the fiber decreases, and the fiber becomes easy to expand the surface and stretch the length. As a result, the fabric is fluffy, plump, and has a soft feel.