A greener approach for full flax bleaching

Gray flax fabrics were treated in a single-stage process for desizing, scouring and bleaching using sodium perborate (SBP) as an environmentally safer bleaching agent. The SPB efficiently bleaches flax fabrics alone and without any catalysts. Different parameters affecting the treatment were studied to get maximum whiteness for the flax fabrics. The best results of bleaching were obtained with SPB concentration corresponding to 0.6 mol/L, pH value 10, temperature at 80°C and treatment time 3 h. The material/liquor ratio was kept at 1:30 and 2 g/L of the wetting agent was used throughout the experiment.