Mercerizing
Mercerizing is an after-treatment process of cotton, with a strong caustic alkaline
solution to improve luster, hardness, and other properties that were named
after its inventor, John Mercer, and were used for some time. It has been growing
in applications recently.
Caustic
is usually blended in two steps for pretreatment, bleach, and mercerizing
machines. It is used less for the bleaching process but takes a lot of liquid
caustic for mercerizing. Caustic we get in two forms
1.
Liquid
2.
Solid flakes
The caustic mixing process for mercerizing
At
room temperature sodium hydroxide is an odorless hard crystalline white crystal
that absorbs moisture from the air. It is a manufactured substance. When
dissolved in water or neutralized with acid, it releases a considerable amount
of heat, which can be sufficient to help combustible substances burn. Sodium
hydroxide is very corrosive. It is usually used as a solid or 50% solution.
Other common names include caustic soda and lye. Sodium hydroxide is used in
the manufacture of soap, rayon, paper, explosives, dyestuffs, and petroleum
products. It is mainly used in the processing of cotton fabric laundering,
bleaching, and mercerizing.
The
advantage of liquid is that it is ready to use and can be used immediately and
the purity is good. The liquid is risk-free, it does not mix and is available in
50% solution. If you buy solid flex, it will have to be mixed, it has more
impurity. It accumulates dirt like sugar in drums or tanks.
These
are rolled into drums for all-time use. Advanced drums are mixed and then the
concentration is fixed after cooling. The machine does auto-dosing according to
its GPL. Our job is to keep the concentration right. To make a 50% solution,
need one sack is filled with 100 liters of water in one drum.
Drums
do not work for mercerization, it requires a steel tank Pour 1-2 tons of solid
caustic into the steel tank, mix it with a mixing motor, and leave for 1-2
days. It is mixed with 1 gram of Mercerized Oil per liter. So, this caustic cannot
be used anywhere other than Mercerize. Need 2000 kg caustic in 2000-liter water
for 50 % solution is approx.
It is 50%, but
it takes 22, 20, and 25% to mercerize according to the fabric. If you set% it on a
German mix machine, you can reduce it by diluting 50% in different densities
with a tolerance of +/- 1. The machine measured by itself, there is no need to
measure manually.
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