Single-treatment radiation process for imparting durable soil-release properties to cotton and cotton-polyester blend fabrics

In a process for imparting soil release and soil repellent properties to cotton and cotton-polyester blend fabrics wherein acrylic-type emulsions or solutions are employed, the improvement characterized by:

• a single-treatment, regardless of the fabric construction or composition, consisting of covalently reacting the cotton and polyester with an acrylic-type monomer by
• a. irradiating the cotton or cotton-polyester blend fabric to a dosage of 1 megarad,
• b. impregnating the fabric of (a) with a solution 80:20, respectively, of methanol:water containing about from 2% to 15% of methacrylic acid monomer,
• c. reacting the impregnated fabric for about from 15 to 120 minutes at ambient temperature, the time varying with the desired degree of graft polymerization, and
• d. washing the unreacted chemicals off the reacted fabric, and drying to obtain a fabric product with a polymer add-on of about from 6% to 22%, which repels and releases aqueous soil and releases oily soil.