Cationic fixing agents were initially applied as aftertreatments to the dyed textile fibres to improve their wet fastness
properties. However, the improved fastness was related only to non-detergent agencies. Later on, this limitation of mono-functional cationic fixing agents has been overcome by the development of polyfunctional crosslinking fixing agents which carry reactant groups capable of forming more permanent bonds with other suitable groups in the dye or fibre. The basic mechanism of multifunctional fixing agents has been well described by Robinson as shown in Figure. During 1980's there was a great revival of interest in the techniques for enhancing the dyeability of cellulosic fibres with reactive or direct dyes by pretreatment with a great variety of cationic products usually based on nitrogen. This modification of cellulosic fibres with cationic agents resulted in increased substantivity of anionic dyes for cellulosic fibres by introducing new cationic sites. Lewis and Lei reviewed numerous chemicals that can be used to provide cationic charges to cotton fibres . Pretreatment of cellulosic fibres with cationic agents has been reported to enhance the uptake of anionic dyes and facilitate the fixation of reactive dyes in the absence of either salt or alkali [23,24]. The cationised fibre not only has improved substantivity for direct and reactive dyes, but could also be dyed with acid dyes. Amines , quaternary ammonium , phosphonium and tertiary sulphonium compounds can be used as dye fixing agents. By far the most important type of cationic fixing agents used in textile processing is quaternary ammonium salt.
(a)
(b)
Fig: (a) Fixing agents showing various degrees of functionality (b) Modes of reaction of the various fixing agents
QUATERNARY AMMONIUM SALTS
Quaternary ammonium salts have widespread applications in different fields and are used as surfactants, phase transfer catalysts, solvents, drugs, herbicides, antimicrobials and disinfectants. Being surfactants these compounds are used as softeners for textile and paper products, as emulsifiers, as washing agents for textile materials dyed or printed with cationic dyes and as fixing agents for cellulose-containing materials dyed with anionic dyes . The positive charge in these compounds imparts antistatic properties to wool, cotton and other cellulosic fibres as well as certain synthetic fibres. Amongst the manifold applications, one of the primary functions of these compounds is their use as cationic fixing agents. Different quaternary ammonium salts [have been applied to the fibres either as pretreatment or aftertreatment to improve the wet fastness properties of anionic dyes. These include monomeric or polymeric quaternary ammonium salts having different reactive groups. The most commonly used quaternary ammonium salts are: 1. dialkyl azetidinium chloride (1) 2. epoxy / halohydroxy propyl derivatives (2, 3)
3. mono- and bis-reactive haloheterocyclic derivatives (4) 4. poly-epichlorohydrin dialkyl derivatives (5) The anions in these fixing agents are usually chloride or bromide.
PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED WITH THE FIXING AGENTS Although a variety of fixing agents have been used to improve the fastness properties of anionic dyes but to date none has achieved significant commercial success. All these treatments enhanced the uptake of the dye yet there are practical drawbacks to all these treatments including hue changes, poor penetration into the fibre and light fastness limitations . These areas require further investigations and there is still a need for novel dyeing processes that improve properties in respect of application and fastness properties of the dyeing.
