Bleaching of SeaCell® active fabrics with hydrogen peroxide

Seaweed-based SeaCell® fibres have been considered as new materials for textile industry. In this study, seaweedbased SeaCell® Active fibres which have antifungal and antibacterial activity have been used. Simple, economic and green process is applied to investigate the bleaching performance of SeaCell® Active fabric. Bleaching process has been performed in a laboratory scale dyeing machine by using H 2 O 2 at different concentrations. Also, different bleaching trials were carried out by varying temperature, pH and process duration. Colour Measurements of the bleached SeaCell® Active fabrics have been characterized by utilizing Datacolor SF 600 +. Tristimulus and Whiteness Index values have been calculated according to the CIELab system with D65/10 o observer values. After the bleaching treatment, the obtained results reveal that SeaCell® Active fabric with satisfactory whiteness index and improved lightness ( L *) value can be obtained by processing the fabric at 90 °C for 60 min in a bleaching bath with fixed pH 7.5 containing 30 m l/l H 2 O 2 . SEM images of untreated and bleached SeaCell® Active fabrics also show that some fibres have been damaged after bleaching process.