An Eco-Friendly Approach Towards Bleaching Process for Whitening of Kydia calycina Fibres Instead of Hydrogen Peroxide

This study was conducted to sustain the eco-friendly approach for bleaching of Kydia calycina fibres. The Kydia calycina fibres were extracted from the young shoots of Kydia calycina plant through water retting and then the extracted fibres were scoured with pectinase enzyme. After that, the scoured Kydia calycina fibres were bleached with three different methods. Among them, the best bleaching method was selected on the basis of tenacity, elongation, fineness, fibre length, weight loss and whiteness index. The concentration of sodium perborate, concentration of TAED, time and temperature of selected bleaching method were optimised using SAS software. At optimisation stage, tenacity, elongation, fineness and whiteness index of bleached fibres were tested. The results indicated that TAED activated sodium perborate showed better tenacity (3.81 g/d), elongation (2.09 %), fineness (22.92 denier) and maximum whiteness index (68.67) at optimised variables including concentration of sodium hydroxide (5 g/l), concentration of TAED (3 g/l), time (60 min) and temperature (500 C).