Sustainable Cationic Cotton with Keratin Hydrolysate

Abstract

In this research work, the keratin hydrolysate was obtained from waste wool by using alkaline hydrolysis. The extracted keratin hydrolysate was treated to the cotton fabric, and then reference and treated fabrics dyed with direct dyestuffs in neutral medium without salt. It was revealed that there was improvement in treated fabric in terms of dyeability and dry crease recovery angle compared to untreated fabric and that wet fastness values and tensile strength values of treated fabric remained same compared to those of untreated fabric. The structural change of treated surfaces was confirmed by SEM, FTIR, XPS and TEM analyses.