**9. E-beam irradiation technology**

Radiation processing has been increasingly applied in industries to improve the quality of products, efficiency, energy saving and to manufacture products with unique properties [127]. An irradiation can induce chemical reactions at any temperature in the solid, liquid and gas phase without any catalyst; it is a safe method that could protect the environment against pollution; radiation process could reduce curing time and energy saving; it could treat a large and thick three-dimensional fabrics that need not consider of the shape of the samples [128].

cation area in other industrial processes and these applications are surpassing telecommuni‐

In textile processing it is necessary to apply heat as in dye fixation, heat setting or drying the product. Heat can be transferred to the material by radiation, conduction and convection. These three ways of transferring can be used either separately or in combination. The saving of time and energy is of immediate interest to the textile industry. The introduction of new techniques which will allow less energy to be used: is a highly important area of activity to consider. The textile industry has investigated many uses for microwave energy such as heating, drying, dye fixation, printing and curing of resin finished fabrics. In 1966, Ciba-Ge‐ igy obtained one of the earliest patents for using microwave heating in dyeing and printing fibrous material with reactive dyes. Since then many authors have investigated the feasibili‐ ty of using microwaves for a variety of dyeing and finishing processes [123]. Although many studies have focused on investigating the feasibility of using microwaves to dye poly‐ ester fibers with disperse dyes, researches related to the use of microwave heating in dyeing

*Delaney and Seltzer (1972)* used microwave heating for fixation of pad-dyeings on wool and they demonstrated the feasibility of applying certain reactive dyes to wool in fixation times

*Zhao and He (2011)* treated the wool fabric with microwave irradiation at different condi‐ tions and then studied for its physical and chemical properties using a variety of techni‐ ques, such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and scanning electron. It was found that microwave irradiation of wool fabric significantly improved its dyeability. It was stated that this could be due to the change in wool surface morpho‐ logical structure under microwave irradiation which implied that the barrier effect in wool dyeing was diminished. Although the breaking strength of the treated wool fabrics also improved with microwave irradiation, the chemical structure and crystallinity did

In literature it was stated that dyeing time of mohair could be drastically reduced from the conventional 90 minutes to 35 minutes using the radio frequency technique, only 5 minutes of the 35 minutes representing actual exposure to the radio frequency field. An estimated saving of some 80% in dyeing energy costs could be achieved. Furthermore, dye fixation im‐ proved slightly from 93% to 96%. *Turpie* quoted unpublished data in which radio-frequency dyeing of tops produced better luster and enabled higher maximum spinning speeds than did conventional dyeing of mohair. *Smith,* claimed advantages of radio-frequency dyeing and bleaching, - for example, reduced chemical damage because of a shorter exposure to

Radiation processing has been increasingly applied in industries to improve the quality of products, efficiency, energy saving and to manufacture products with unique properties

cation applications [116].

130 Eco-Friendly Textile Dyeing and Finishing

of proteinous fibers are very limited.

not show any significant change [125].

**9. E-beam irradiation technology**

100°C; and reduced energy, water and effluent costs [126].

of 30-60 s [124].

Physical techniques for activating fiber molecules in the absence of solvent for producing functional textiles are becoming increasingly attractive also from an ecological viewpoint. Among them, electron beam processing is particularly interesting as it offers the possibility to treat the materials without solvent, at normal temperature and pressure [129]. Whilst the energy of the electrons in gas discharge plasmas is typically in the range of 1-10 electron volt (eV), electron-beam (E-beam) accelerators generate electrons with a much higher energy, generally 300 keV to 12 MeV. These electrons may be used to modify polymer materials through direct electron-to-electron interactions. These interactions can create active species such as radicals, so there are different possible outcomes from the electron-beam irradiation of polymer materials, on the basis of the chosen operating conditions [130].

The formation of active sites on the polymer backbone can be carried out by several meth‐ ods such as plasma treatment, ultraviolet (UV) light radiation, decomposition of chemical initiator and high-energy radiation [131]. At present, the most common radiation types in industrial use are gamma and e-beam. E-beam machines play a significant role in the proc‐ essing of polymeric materials; a number of different machine designs and different energies are available. Industrial e-beam accelerators with energies in the 150-300 keV range are in use in applications where low penetration is needed, such as curing of surface coatings. Ac‐ celerators operating in the 1.5 MeV range are used where more penetration is needed. Ebeam machines have high-dose rate and therefore short processing times. While they have limited penetration compared with gamma, they conversely have good utilization of energy because it can all be absorbed by the sample irradiated [132].

New radiation processing applications involving ion-beam treatment of polymers offer ex‐ citing prospects for future commercialization, and are under active investigation in many re‐ search laboratories. Much of the work has involved the irradiation of non-polar polyolefins (PE, PS, PP, etc.) as a means of inducing polar groups at surfaces, in order to enhance such properties as printability, wetability and exc. [132]. Studies related to the e-beam irradiation of proteinous fibers are limited.

*Fatarella et al.(2010)* wanted to clarify whether fiber surface treatments such as plasma and ebeam could affect the effectiveness of a TGase treatment by improving the accessibility of target amino acids in wool to the enzyme or improving the penetration of the enzyme into the wool fiber cortex, thus accessing more sites for reaction. Plasma treatments with differ‐ ent non-polymerizing gases (oxygen, air and nitrogen) and e-beam irradiation in air or nitro‐ gen atmosphere were assessed as possible pretreatments to non-proteolytic enzymatic processes (such as TGase) to improve the accessibility of target groups in the wool proteins to the enzymes. Only limited inhibition and/or inactivation of the transglutaminase enzyme was found after treatment with plasma and e-beam, suggesting such treatments could be used as a preparative treatment prior to the application of the enzyme. In contrast, by in‐ creasing the energy of the electrons in e-beam treatments no significant superficial modifica‐ tions were observed. In fact, they promoted the cleavage of high-energy bond, such as S-S linkage, by enhancing depolymerization reaction [130].

*Direct ion implantation* eliminates the need for the current limiting magnet found in mass-an‐ alyzed ion implantation by using an ion source that produces a plasma and ion beam of just the desired material. In direct ion implantation, the plasma is formed in the ion source and the ions extracted at high energies in a wide beam, passing through a valve directly into the end station, where the ion implant parts within the target area. In such a case, the beam cur‐ rent density can be high (10-50 mA), costs are greatly reduced, and relatively high through‐

The Use of New Technologies in Dyeing of Proteinous Fibers

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/53912

133

It is difficult in practice to treat uniformly three-dimensional objects such as sockets in artifi‐ cial hip joints, without using sophisticated manipulating devices. Recently, however, an in‐ novative hybrid technology, *plasma source ion implantation* has been developed, which can, to a large extent, address the problems with conventional ion implantation of components with complex shapes [136]. In plasma source ion implantation (sometimes referred to as plasma ion immersion), the plasma source floods the chamber of the end station with plasma. Ions are extracted from the plasma and directed to the surface of the part being ion implanted by biasing the part to very high negative voltages using a pulsed, negative high voltage power

One of the most recent ion implantation techniques is *metal vapor vacuum arc (MEVVA)*, a type of direct ion implantation. In the mid-1980s, Brown et al. at Lawrence Berkeley Labora‐ tory developed a new type of metal ion source, namely the MEVVA ion source. The MEV‐ VA source makes use of the principle of vacuum arc discharge between the cathode and the anode to create dense plasma from which an intense beam of metal ions of the cathode ma‐

terial is extracted. This metal ion source operates in a pulse mode [134].

put processing is possible [135].

**Figure 13.** MEVVA ion implanter [134]

supply [135].
