Carbohydrate Polymers 83 (2011) 1119–1127 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Carbohydrate Polymers journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/carbpol Self-cleaning properties of bleached and cationized cotton using nanoTiO 2 : A statistical approach A. Nazari a,∗ , M. Montazer b,∗∗ , M.B. Moghadam c , M. Anary-Abbasinejad d a Design & Clothing Department, Islamic Azad University, Yazd Branch, PO Box: 89195-155, Yazd, Iran b Department of Textile Engineering, Center of Excellence in Textile, Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), Hafez Avenue, Tehran, Iran c Department of Statistics, Allameh Tabatabaí University, Tehran, Iran d Young Research Club, Islamic Azad University, Anar Branch, Anar, Iran article info Article history: Received 20 June 2010 Received in revised form 4 September 2010 Accepted 7 September 2010 Available online 17 September 2010 Keywords: Self-cleaning Butane tetra carboxylic acid NanoTiO2 Cationized cotton UV irradiation Central composite design abstract Cationization is a novel treatment on cotton to produce fabric with new characteristics. Bleached cotton fabric has already been treated with nanoTiO 2 (NTO) to create fabric with self-cleaning properties. How- ever treatment of cationized cotton with NTO has not been reported. In this research, the self-cleaning properties of bleached and cationized cotton treated by NTO were compared and optimized using a statistical model. The bleached cotton was first cationized with 3-chloro-2-hydroxypropyl trimethyl ammonium chloride (Quat-188). The NTO particles were stabilized on the cotton surface using butane tetra carboxylic acid (BTCA) in the presence of sodium hypophosphite (SHP) under different curing con- ditions including UV irradiation (UV), high temperature (High temp) and a combination of UV and high temperature (UV–Temp). The central composite design (CCD) was used for different variables based on Design of Expert software. The appropriate model was obtained for each condition to create opti- mum color difference. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were also employed to indicate the NTO particles on the fabric surface including the size of nanoparticles and their crystallinity. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In recent years, NTO attracts much attention because of their photo catalytic activity and ability to absorb ultra-violet irradiation (Cassaignon, Koelsch, & Jolivet, 2007; Dastjerdi & Montazer, 2010; Jung & Park, 1999; Montazer & Pakdel, 2010; Uddin et al., 2007; Watson, Beydoun, Scott, & Amal, 2003). In addition, the deposition of NTO particles on fabrics used to obtain different characteris- tics such as: self-cleaning (Bozzi, Yuranova, & Kiwi, 2005; Carneiro et al., 2007; Huang, Huang, Nguyen, & Hsu, 2007; Mihailovicˇ ı et al., 2010; Uddin et al., 2008; Yang, Han, & Choy, 2006; Yuranova, Mosteo, Bandara, Laubb, & Kiwi, 2006), waste material and pol- lutants decomposition (Klaus et al., 2003; Pal, Pehkonene, Yu, & Ray, 2007; Yao, Ho, Yan, & Tzeng, 2007; Zhang, Su, Zhao, & Tan, 2008), harmful bacteria growth prevention (Sunada, Watanabe, & Hashimoto, 2003; Liu & Yang, 2003; Zhao, Krishna, Hua, Moudgil, & Koopman, 2009; Rincon & Pulgarin, 2003), crease recovery angle improvement (Chen & Wang, 2006; Nazari, Montazer, & ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +98 9132742611. ∗∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +98 2164542657. E-mail addresses: a.nazari textile@yahoo.com (A. Nazari), tex5mm@aut.ac.ir (M. Montazer). Rahimi, 2009; Nazari, Montazer, Rashidi, Yazdanshenas, & Anary- Abbasinejad, 2009; Nazari, Montazer, Rashidi, Yazdanshenas, & Moghadam, 2010; Wang & Chen, 2005a) and UV-protection (Gouda & Keshk, 2010). The property of photo catalysis contributes to the decom- position of the organic substances existed on the surfaces of nanoparticles. Self-cleaning of modified cotton by NTO at low temperature shows that bleached and mercerized cottons can be activated by RF-plasma, MW-plasma and UV-irradiation incorpo- rating negatively charged groups to anchor NTO on the fabric surface. This process is promising for the total removal of stains containing persistent color pigments on the cotton fabrics (Bozzi, Yuranova, Guasaquillo, Laub, & Kiwi, 2005; Meilert, Laub, & Kiwi, 2005; Yuranova, Laub, & Kiwi, 2007). Also, cationization of cotton fabric has been considered in the recent studies and dyeing of treated fabric with anionic dye with- out salt reported (Kamel, El-Shishtawy, Youssef, & Mashaly, 2007; Kamel, El Zawahry, Ahmed, & Abdelghaffar, 2009; Montazer, Malek, & Rahimi, 2007; Wang, Ma, Zhang, Teng, & Yang, 2009a; Wang, Ma, Zhang, Teng, & Yang, 2009b). It was shown that the exhaus- tion method has the lowest reaction efficiency and pad-steam or pad-batch have the highest one for cationization of cellulose with 3-chloro-2-hydroxypropyl trimethyl ammonium chloride (CHTAC) (Hashem, Hauser, & Smith, 2003). 0144-8617/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.carbpol.2010.09.015