Taylor Kanipe, a graduate student at North Carolina State University (NC State), will present her results at the fall meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). ACS Fall 2025 is being held Aug. 17-21; it features more than 9,000 presentations on a range of science topics.
The process for harvesting cotton and creating fabric for textiles includes collecting the wispy cellulose fibers of the cotton boll, removing the cotton seeds interspersed in the fibers, spinning the cotton into yarn, weaving the yarn into fabric and then finishing the fabric with a variety of chemicals that alter its physical properties — for example, making it softer or wrinkle resistant.
Formaldehyde-based resins have traditionally been used as a fabric finishing agent. The sticky resin easily binds to cotton’s cellulose fibers, forming chemical bridges to make the long cellulose fibers resistant to wrinkling or stretching. While formaldehyde is cheap, easy to use and highly reactive, at high concentrations it is considered a Class 1 carcinogen. Formaldehyde can also cause skin and respiratory irritations. Fluorine-containing water repellant coatings create a hydrophobic surface to make cotton fabric water resistant. However, these coatings contain PFAS, such as perfluorooctane sulfonate and perfluorooctanoic acid, and are being phased out due to their persistent nature and potential link to health conditions.
To eliminate the need for formaldehyde-based resins and PFAS in cotton fabric finishing, a group led by Richard Venditti, a professor of forest biomaterials, paper science and engineering at NC State, set out to create a green alternative by chemically altering seed oil from the cotton plant itself. Drawing on previous research at NC State, Kanipe, Venditti and colleagues took advantage of specific chemical properties in cottonseed oil to insert epoxy groups along the long carbon chains that make up the oil molecules. The epoxide group allows epoxidized cottonseed oil (ECSO) molecules to create strong chemical bonds with the cellulose fibers in cotton fabric and with each other, forming a polymer and making the fabric hydrophobic. The epoxy groups also create oil molecule bridges between the cellulose fibers, making the fabric resistant to wrinkling.
In addition to fabric finishing, ECSO could provide a use for the cottonseed oil harvested along with the cotton fibers, making it as inexpensive, easy to use and effective as formaldehyde resins.
“Epoxidized vegetable oils have a range of applications,” Kanipe explains. “While native cottonseed oil lacks the reactivity of formaldehyde-based resins, this simple epoxidation process produces a safer, more user-friendly alternative for applications like durable press finishes.”
The researchers weighed and chemically analyzed the ECSO-treated fabric using a type of infrared spectroscopy to ensure the ECSO molecules had successfully bonded to the fabric’s surface. To evaluate the finished fabric’s water repellent qualities, the researchers used a high-speed camera to measure the contact angle at which water droplets would interact with the cotton surface. The larger the angle between the water droplet and the surface of the fabric, the greater the water resistance. Untreated fabric showed no contact angle (in other words, the water was fully absorbed into the fabric), while ECSO-treated fabric showed a contact angle of 125 degrees, indicating a significant increase in water-repelling ability.
Future studies will measure additional performance factors in ECSO-treated cotton fabric, including tear strength, durability and wrinkle resistance. The team’s ultimate goal is to create a process of treating cotton with an ECSO water emulsion, a green process that does not require hazardous finishing substances.
“If we can achieve our goal of changing the properties of the cotton fabric — making it anti-wrinkle, anti-staining and water-resistant — using a water-based process, we’ll have a green process for putting a bio-based material onto cotton as a replacement for formaldehyde- and PFAS-based finishes,” says Venditti.
This research was funded by Cotton Incorporated and an Agriculture and Food Research Initiative from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
Visit the ACS Fall 2025 program to learn more about this presentation, “Sustainable cotton fabric finishing: epoxidized cottonseed oil as a bio-based alternative to formaldehyde-based treatments” and other science presentations.
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Title
Sustainable cotton fabric finishing: epoxidized cottonseed oil as a bio-based alternative to formaldehyde-based treatments
Abstract
The textile industry is moving away from formaldehyde-based durable press finishes due to regulatory and environmental concerns, creating a need for sustainable alternatives. Cotton fabric, widely used in apparel and home textiles, benefits from treatments that enhance durability, wrinkle resistance, and hydrophobicity. However, conventional finishing agents often rely on synthetic chemicals, which pose potential health and environmental risks. This study explores the use of epoxidized cottonseed oil (ECSO) as a bio-based alternative for modifying cotton fabric and cellulose-based materials. Cotton fabric and filter paper were grafted with ECSO using a solvent-based system, varying catalyst concentrations, reaction times, and ECSO loadings. ATR-FTIR analysis confirmed successful modification through the presence of carbonyl peaks (1740 cm-1), while water contact angle (WCA) measurements increased from 0° to 125°, demonstrating significant hydrophobicity enhancement. Additionally, stable ECSO oil-in-water emulsions were developed using green emulsifiers and applied to cotton fabric via a pad-dry-cure process to assess their performance as fabric softeners and wrinkle-resistant finishes. These results highlight the potential of ECSO as a sustainable textile treatment, offering improved fabric performance without the use of formaldehyde-based chemistry. Continued refinement of curing conditions, including time, temperature, and catalyst loading, seeks to improve treatment effectiveness. Future research will assess additional performance factors, such as tear strength, smoothness, wrinkle resistance, and durability, to validate the feasibility of ECSO-based finishes for industrial use.
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