Characterizing Aged Textile Fibers by Fourier Transform Infrared Photoacoustic Spectroscopy

Abstract

Photoacoustic Fourier transform infrared Spectroscopy has been used to characterize naturally and artificially aged fibers of cotton. Naturally aged cotton fibers from ar cheological sites in the southwest United States exhibited a family of pronounced absorption bands in the C=O stretch region of the infrared spectrum (1600-1750 cm^-1) not found in fibers from new cotton cloth. New cotton fibers artificially aged at > 160°C in air exhibited strikingly similar spectral features, along with a severe loss of fiber tensile strength. Cotton artificially aged at 190°C in a nitrogen atmosphere exhibited a similar loss in fiber tensile strength, but without developing new C=O bands. This suggests that the decrease in cotton fiber tensile strength may occur via several mechanisms, or may be only coincidentally associated with the developement of C=O absorption bands. Nevertheless, photoacoustic spectroscopy may be used as a rapid, sensitive, and nondestructive method to predict the extent of oxidative deg radation in naturally aged samples of cotton textiles.

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