Study on Charge Distribution of Carboxymethylated Cotton Fabric by Streaming Potential/Current Measurements

Carboxymethylated cotton might provide an eco-friendly novel approach to impart different functions to fabric by crosslinking or self-assembly deposition of nanolayers. The anionic content of carboxymethylated cotton was determined by acid-base titration. Two interrelated methods of surface electrochemistry for anionic cotton fabrics were investigated in this paper. Measurement of surface charge on carboxymethylated cotton was achieved by characterizing the zeta potential of the anionized fibers via streaming current (SC) and fiber-pad streaming potential (SP) measurements, which showed only a small percentage of total charges contributed to the surface charge. SC and SP methods were proven to be useful in studying the surface charge of ionic cellulose.