Factors Affecting the Rubbing Fastness of Textile

Materials
RUBBING FASTNESS:
In dyed and printed textile materials the unfixed dye particles are mechanically
held on the surface and these particles are rubbed off easily on the wearer skin or
any other cloth of contact. So it is necessary to determine the rubbing fastness of
dyed or printed textile materials. Rubbing is the transference of color from
colored textile material to other surfaces principally by rubbing. The rubbing
fastness can be determined by using an instrument called crockmeter and it
works on the principle of abrasion. When the crockmeter finger with test fabric
slides over the specimen due to friction there is color transfer from the colored
specimen to the white crocking cloth. Due to the abrasion the deep dyed fibers
break into micro fibrils and stick onto the crocking cloth permanently. Rubbing
can occur under dry and wet conditions.

In dry rubbing, initially the periphery of the colored specimen get ruptured, so
that the loosely or unfixed dye particles are removed and adhered to the surface
fibers of the crocking cloth. Initially the concentration of the dye stuff is more, so
more staining occurs and there are more surface fibers in the crocking cloth that
can hold dye or pigment particles. As the rubbing cycle continues due to abrasion
the surface fibers are removed as deep dyed micro fibrils in dark shade.

In wet rubbing, unfixed dyes will dissolve in water and then it is transferred to
the test fabric, hence resulting in poor wet rubbing fastness. In wet crocking both
color and the colored short fibers are transferred to the crocking cloth. In the
standard crock meter about 9N of load is applied with a finger diameter of 16 mm
which slides over the track length of 104mm which slides about 10 cycles per 10
sec.

1. Material Characteristics:
The characteristics of the textile materials like the quality of fiber or yarn and the
fabric surface structure play an important role in deciding the rubbing fastness .

1.1 The quality of fiber or yarn:

Cotton is the most widely used textile fibers in the world accounting for more
than 50% of total consumption. There should be proper selection of cotton
fiber to ensure good rubbing fastness. When immature and dead cotton fibers
are used, during spinning it undergoes abrasion with metallic parts and the
immature fibers may breaks into short fibers. Further in dyeing the dyes will not
be properly fixed to the immature and dead fibers. So, mature cotton fibers can
be chosen to enhance the rubbing fastness.
The carded yarn have more short fibers, during wet rubbing both color and
colored short fibers are transferred to the crocking cloth. For this reason we can
choose combed yarn where the short fiber content is less. The open end spinning
yarns like rotor yarn have more short fibers so we can go for ring compact yarn.

It has been found that the fabric made out of mercerized cotton shows improved
fastness to rubbing. Due to the change in the fiber structure on mercerizing,
there is a 30% less extent of removal of fiber particles.

These protruding fibers dotted over the surface can be removed by bio polishing.
Cellulase enzymes are used to degrade the raised fiber or yarn. When these
enzymes are applied to the fabric, they partially digest the protruding fibers and
loosened from the fabric. The loosened fiber or yarn is then removed by high
speed mechanical agitation.

1.2 Surface characteristics:

Surface structure of the textile materials influences the rubbing fastness to an
extent. when the crocking finger slides over the specimen there will be a contact
area between the two surfaces (nominal contact area). However all the points of
the crocking cloth won’t touch the specimen, the contact takes place at the tip of
the junction (true contact area). The nominal contact area is same for all kinds of
fabrics but the true contact area varies from fabric to fabric. If a dyed cotton
fabric is used as a specimen there will be surface fibers in between the warp or
weft yarns. So the true contact area is more, therefore there is a possibility of
more color transfer from the specimen to the crocking cloth. For synthetic fibers
the amount of surface fibers is less comparatively with cotton fabrics. If the
surface is rough the abrasion is more and there is a possibility of poor rubbing
fastness. So smooth surface gives good rubbing fastness.

2. Selection of dyes/Depth of shade:

The selection of dye is an essential factor to ensure excellent rubbing fastness.
The selection of dye should be done on the basis of the affinity of the dye
molecules to the fiber molecules. For cellulosic fibers the dyes of long planar
molecules is selected with one or more solubilising groups. For synthetic
polymeric fiber, the dye is chosen based on the ionic groups in the fiber
molecules. The polyamide fibers are cationic in nature, so dyes of anionic nature
are suitable. Whereas acrylics are anionic in nature, so the cationic dyes are
suitable. For cellulose acetate and polyester fibers the dyes of one or more polar
groups must be present. Usually manmade fibers has good affinity to dyes
having short alkyl chains.

Solubility is essential for a dye to penetrate into the intermolecular micropores of

the fiber. The size of the dye molecules should be smaller than the pores of the
fiber molecule so that it enters in to interior of the fibers. Otherwise it will
remains on the surface of fiber and get removed while on rubbing. The solubility
has also an adverse effect that it causes staining while wet crocking.

The depth of shade determines the ratings of rubbing fastness of the textile
materials. The depth is high due to the more amount of dye deposition (or) due to
the strength of the optical effect produced by the dye. Due to this reason the
darker shade will crock more than the lighter shade.

3. Dyeing/printing procedure (or) fixation of dye:

The incorrect dyeing procedure and improper fixation is the major cause for poor
crocking.

Direct dyes:
The direct dyes are mainly used to dye cellulosic fibers such as cotton, viscose and
acetate rayon. The direct dye molecules contain groups like amino groups get
attached to the polymeric molecules at the hydroxyl groups of cellulose. The size
of the dye molecule is such that it can enter the amorphous region of cellulose
and it cannot enter in to the crystalline region. When a cellulosic fiber is dyed
with a direct dye for a short time the dye molecules remains mainly on the
surface, with slight diffusion so it can be easily removed by crocking.

For the direct dyes to have affinity to fiber, the dye molecule should be linear and
the benzene ring should be coplanar and the dye molecule should have hydrogen
bond forming groups such as amino, hydroxyl (or) azo groups.

In direct dyeing the temperature of dyeing determines the amount of the dye
taken. At low temperature slow dyeing takes place, when the temperature

increases the dye molecules rushes in to the fiber. For even dyeing the dyeing
process should be started at low temperature and the temperature is raised
gradually to necessary temperature. So uniform shade occurs.

Reactive dyes:
Reactive dyeing is the most important dyeing method for the coloration of
cellulosic fibers. During dyeing the H atom in the cellulose molecule combines
with a Cl atom of the dye molecule and the covalent bond formation occur. The
dyes not only react with the cellulose but also react with hydroxyl ions present in
the dye bath and causes dye hydrolysis.

After dyeing there will be residual unfixed dyes present over the surface. These
residual unfixed dyes and the other dye complexes sticking to the surface can be
removed by suitable after cleaning process. By soaping/washing process these
unfixed dyes are removed to an extent. During soaping process the unfixed dyes
are removed from the surface and it aggregates together. The aggregated dye
molecules may redeposit on to the surface. It can be prevented by using suitable
soaping agent with anti re-deposition property.

When these soaping agents are used, the removed unfixed dyes are trapped by
the soaping molecule and therefore no aggregation occurs. so the chance of re-
deposition get reduced.

Even after soaping there will be small amount of unfixed dyes. Owing to the
solubility of reactive dyes the unfixed and the surface dyes will dissolve in water
during wet rubbing and get transferred to the crocking cloth. To reduce the
solubility of unfixed dyes the fixing agents are used.

For anionic reactive dyes cationic fixing agents are used. These fixing agents will
neutralize the permanent solubilising group of the unfixed dyes and make them
insoluble.

Dyestuffs with only one functional group sometimes have a low degree of

fixation. So bifunctional dye stuff like dichloro triazine can be used for better
fixation. Addition type reactive dyes have good substantivity for fibers, so dyes
like vinyl sulhone type can be used. Due to good fixation and exhaustion
properties, substitution type reactive dyes (mono and dichloro triazine) can be
used. Reactive dyestuffs having two different reactive groups (one mono chloro
triazine and one vinyl sulphone ) can be used to improve degree of fixation.

Indigo dyes:
Indigo is one of the earliest dyestuff used for about thousand years. Indigo dyes
are insoluble in nature, so it reduced to leuko form to assist dyeing and then
oxidised to make it insoluble. The reduced form of indigo is blue in color. Indigo
dyeing is carried out in continuous ranges either in sheet or rope form, where the
dye stuff is not allowed to diffuse into the fiber. Due to the presence of more
amount of surface dye, Indigo dyed denims shows poor fastness to crocking.

Due to ineffective desizing, during processing the starch film breaks and the
cracking of starch occurs. Due to the abrasion, of dyes present at these places are
discharged into the processing bath. The discharged indigo dye may redeposit
over the surface .This process is called back staining. Because of back staining the
re- deposited indigo dye will not be fixed to the surface. So it leads to poor
crocking. The back staining can be controlled by

 The pH of 6.5 to 7.5 should be maintained during processing .

 Lengthing the rinsing time will reduce the back staining.
  Dispersing agents can be used to minimize the back staining. Optimum
dosage of 0.5 to 2 gpl of fatty alcohols can be used.
 After treatment with protease based detergents can control back staining.
 The finishing recipes are available to improve the rubbing fastness of indigo
dyed denim.

To improve the dry rubbing fastness, the silicone softeners are used. When the
macro emulsions of silicone softeners are used, these macro emulsions of silicone
molecules get deposited on the surface and provide surface softness. The
finishing layer will prevent the adhesion of the two rubbing surfaces (crocking
cloth and the specimen)

Printing procedure:
Pigment printed goods often suffer from color fastness problems. This is due to
lack of affinity of pigment towards the fiber. Usually pigments are insoluble in
water and it is applied to the textile materials with the help of the binding
adhesive. The application is of simple process pad-dry-cure. After printing and
drying the printed fabric should be cured at elevated temperature. The rubbing
fastness mainly depends on the curing of the binder. The cured binder act as a
film for protecting film. The curing is as follows

 At 130º for 7-8 min -–cross linking will not be completed at this time
 At 150º for 4-5 min—standard curing temperature
 At 170º for 1.5-2.5min—complete evaporation of emulsifier occurs

Rubbing fastness improvers are used to ensure excellent rubbing fastness of

pigment printed goods.

From the above discussion it can be concluded that rubbing fastness depends on
factors like material characteristics, Selection of dyes/depth of shade, Dyeing
printing procedure .It is clear that the selected sample should contain less short
fibers , by proper soaping and by good fixation ,we can improve the rubbing
fastness of textile materials. However the rubbing fastness of printed and dyed
goods can be improved by carefully handling the above factors