Using of chitosan as an alternative biodegradable thickener in reactive Ink Jet Printing

In this paper, cellulosic fabrics (cotton-viscose) was treated with chitosan asa biodegradable thickener as a replacement for convention thickener(Alginate and Carboxymethyle cellulose). To achieve this goal, many trialshave made in order to adjust the best conditions ever to apply chitosan as athickener. this trials lie on five main fields, the first one concerning theneutralization process its self, in order to adjust it in one or two baths,second was concerning by the best way and time for neutralization, then thethird one is to choose the concentration for chitosan to use, then the fourthobject is to compare the optimum concentration of using chitosan by theconventional methods, i.e. Alginate and C.M.C. and at last is to test theeffect of mixing chitosan with alginate with different ratios. The color yieldand color fastness were measured far all of printed sample and the resultshowed that chitosan could be uses as a pretreatment agent for ink jetreactive prints weather alone or in mixture with alginate.