Highly accessible or decrystallized cotton by chemical methods

To obtain highly accessible cotton by cyanoethylation with acrylonitrile after pretreatment with swelling agents, the effect of various swelling agents was examined. Swelling agents such as lithium hydroxide, sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, ethylamine, triethylamine, ethylenediamine, piperazine, benzyltrimethylammonium hydroside (BTMOH), urea, dimethyl sulfoxide, dimethylformamide, zinc chloride, and liquid ammonia were examined. It was found that the sodium hydroxide pretreatment or the dual pretreatment with either potassium hydroxide, ethylenediamine, or BTMOH, and sodium hydroxide prior to acrylonitrile treatment gave modified cottons having moisture regain as high as 14%. In such cases, maximum values of moisture regain were observed at the degrees of cyanoethylation of 5–8%.