State of the sulfur in oxidized wool

During treatment with oxidizing agents, the disulfide sulfur in wool appears to be changed to higher states of oxidation.The exist ence of oxidation derivatives of the disulfide compounds is indicated by the alkali-solubility det ermination, the lead acetate test, b y reduction with hydrochloric acid-potassium iodide solutions, and by cystine ana lyses.The intermediate oxidation derivatives of cystine are unstable under the conditions necessary for protein hydrolysis, a nd at least one of them, cystine disulfoxide, is partially converted to cystine.The results indicate that the values obtained for the cystine content of oxidized wool may be expected to be higher than the actual cystine content since they repr esent the a mount of cystine formed from the partially oxidized cystine compounds a s well as from unoxidized cystine groups.