Wheat starch, gum arabic and chitosan biopolymer treatment of wool fabric for improved shrink resistance finishing.

The major concerns of today's textile wet processing are large use of chemicals and toxic effluents. Eco-friendly sustainable ways of textile processing which are safe to health and environment are receiving much attention. Wool fabric suffers from irreversible shrinkage during washing. In this study, sustainable biopolymers have been utilized to impart shrink resistance finish to wool fabric without affecting the original properties of the fabric. The wool fabric was coated with gum arabic, chitosan, and wheat starch biopolymers. The presence of biopolymers on the wool fabrics was confirmed by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM). The tensile, bending, friction, color strength, yellowness index and whiteness index was measured along with shrink resistance of wool fabric before and after the biopolymer treatment. The biopolymer treatment significantly reduced the area shrinkage (<4%) of wool fabric. The biopolymer coating could be a viable and sustainable alternative to conventional treatments for developing shrink-resistant wool fabric with no adverse effect on fabric properties.

Development of PCR-based technique for detection of purity of Pashmina fiber from textile materials.

Pashmina fiber is one of major specialty animal fiber in India. The quality of Pashmina obtained from Changthangi and Chegu goats in India is very good. Due to restricted availability and high prices, adulteration of natural prized fibers is becoming a common practice by the manufacturers. Sheep wool is a cheap substitute, which is usually used for adulteration and false declaration of Pashmina-based products. Presently, there is lack of cost-effective and readily available methodology to identify the adulteration of Pashmina products from other similar looking substitutes like sheep wool. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based detection method can be used to identify origin of animal fiber. Extraction of quality DNA from dyed and processed animal fiber and textile materials is a limiting factor in the development of such detection methods. In the present study, quality DNA was extracted from textile materials, and PCR-based technique using mitochondrial gene (12S rRNA) specific primers was developed for detection of the Pashmina in textile blends. This technique has been used for detection of the adulteration of the Pashmina products with sheep wool. The technique can detect adulteration level up to 10 % of sheep/goat fibers in textile blends.