Knit Fabric Scouring with Soapnut: A Sustainable Approach Towards Textile Pre-Treatment

Abstract

Detergent contains amphiphilic molecules which diminish the surface tension of water and are widely used for industrial purpose especially during the pretreatment of fabric. When the wastewater containing industrial detergent is discharged into different water sources, it may cause detrimental effect to the aquatic environment. This research paper focuses on the comparative study of natural detergent (soapnut/reetha) and synthetic detergent in case of 100% cotton single jersey knit fabric. Experiments were done using the different concentration of soapnut and at 10% soapnut concentration, weight loss percentage and absorbency of natural detergent scoured fabric were found almost similar to that of fabric scoured with the synthetic detergent. Moreover, bursting strength of fabric scoured with soapnut was found higher than that of synthetic detergent scoured fabric. The result derived from the experiment suggest that soapnut has remarkable detergency properties and can be used as an environment-friendly alternative to synthetic detergent.