The Pretreatment of Ramie Fiber Material with Supercritical CO2 Fluid

Abstract

This study presents a new application of supercritical CO2(scCO2) fluid technology for the pretreatment of ramie fiber materials. It was proved that the scCO2fluid could prominently eliminate the impurities of the ramie fibers. In particular, the lignin of ramie fibers, which usually needs to be removed in strong alkaline solutions, could be greatly eliminated by the scCO2fluid, especially in the presence of some swelling agent. The pretreatment with scCO2fluid resulted in the swelling and expansion of ramie fibers, which favors the further dyeing or finishing of ramie fabric.