Why do the feel of linen fabrics be harder than cotton fabrics?

Flax fibers are natural fibers and are bast fibers in cellulose fibers. In the degumming process, only part of the degumming, the presence of colloids, is one of the reasons for the hard feeling of flax fibers. Flax fiber has high crystallinity (about 70%), high degree of orientation, and the angle of intersection between fibril and fiber axis is less than 10°, so the elongation at break is small (the angle between the fibril and the fiber axis in cotton fiber is between 20° and 30°) The elongation at break of the fiber reflects the flexibility of the fiber. For example, 41.67 tex linen has an elongation at break of 4.2%, while the elongation at break of 29.16 tex cotton yarn is 7.7%, so linen. More rigid than cotton fibers.

In summary, the main reason why the linen feel is harder than the cotton fiber is that the bundle fiber contains a part of the gum, and the flax fiber has high crystallinity, small elongation at break, large rigidity, and low flexibility.

To improve the softness of linen fabrics, you can start with the following aspects.

1 pre-treatment should be strengthened. After retreating, boiling, and rinsing, it is impossible to remove the impurities. According to experience, the pre-treatment of mercerized and then re-bleeding can improve the feel of linen fabric. The reason is that the impurities in the fiber can be further removed, the cohesion between the fibers is reduced, the fibers are relatively loose, and the hand feels soft.

2 using biodegradation method. Treatment with cellulase destroys the orderly arrangement of flax fibers, and turns the larger molecular chains in the fibers into smaller molecular chains, which makes the orientation of the fibers smaller, the crystallinity decreases, and the fiber breaks. Elongation increases its flexibility.

3 softener treatment. Treatment with softener is an important part of improving the feel of linen fabrics, but the choice of softeners should be cautious, such as hemp softeners, amino-modified silicone oils, etc., as well as some cationic softeners and silicone compounds.

4 strengthen the pre-shrinking finishing. After the linen fabric is pre-shrinked, the fabric is more fluffy and full, and the hand feel is softer, and the shrinkage rate can be controlled.

5 Washing and finishing. Some linen fabrics need to be washed and washed, washed with water, dried, and continuously turned in a drum type hot air dryer. The high temperature hot air enters the inside of the fiber, and the fabric becomes fluffy, thick, and the surface is fluffy, and the hand feels soft and full.

If the above methods can be used reasonably, it is helpful to improve the feel of linen fabric. The above three or four treatment methods can be adopted according to the actual situation.