Goller offers open width knit merceriser with multiple benefits

Mercerising is a treatment that adds value to cellulosic
fabrics. It is a process of treatment of cotton fabric with
highly concentrated caustic soda, under tension.

Mercerisation is possible for both woven as well as knitted
cellulosic fabrics. Mercerisation improves the dyeability of
such fabrics and imparts dimensional stability and tensile
strength to these fabrics. The lustre which is obtained
through mercerisation stays permanently with the fabric
and additionally this treatment gives a cooling feel to the
fabric, thus giving greater comfort to the end user. With
the emphasis on comfortable clothing growing every year,mercerised knitted fabrics are in great demand for making
garments for international high end fashion brands.

Indian knit processors have realised the immense
benefits of switching over from tubular to open width
processing for knit fabrics. Several processors in the
country have already converted their knit process houses
to open width bleaching, cold pad batch dyeing and
washing.

The knit mercerisation uptrend has been prevalent
since over 15 years. However, the growth in knit
mercerisation was constrained as it so far was applicable
only for tubular fabrics. Tubular mercerisation has its own
limitations – it creates visible marks on the edges of fabric
and it also causes a lot of effluent treatment issues due to
the high chemical oxygen demand load per unit of fabric
treated. This is where the development of the open width
knit mercerisation process has helped considerably, as this
process not only mitigates these issues faced by tubular
mercerisation, but also improves the quality of fabric in
terms of feel and comfort. It also has higher savings in
dyeing related processing costs as compared to
unmercerised cotton knits. Soon, we expect that open
width knit mercerisation will be an integral part of the
sequence of knitted fabric processing.

Goller is a pioneer and a global market leader in the
manufacturing of open width textile processing ranges,
including those for knit mercerisation. Goller was founded
in Germany in 1948 and became a member of the CHTC
Fong’s Group in 2006. The integration of Goller into the
CHTC Fong’s Group helped it to develop and spread at a
tremendous rate its highly engineered textile wet finishing
ranges for the textile industry.

Goller has already successfully installed open width
knit mercerises worldwide including one commissioned
recently in a knit process house at Kolkata. Considering the
benefits and current trends, open width mercerisation is
no doubt the way forward for open width knit processing
factories in India.