Pesticides carried by cotton fiber are potential risk for production workers and consumers. Dissipation behaviour of a commonly used cotton pesticide profenofos in cotton fiber during growing period and scouring treatment was investigated. The results showed that profenofos in the fiber from the pre-opened and post-opened bolls both decreased to undetectable amounts 21 days after pesticide application. However, a minority of profenofos was converted to a strongly irritant compound, 4-bromo-2-chlorophenol and retained a non-negligible amount in cotton fiber even after 28 days. Profenofos and its degradation product could be completely removed during the conventional cotton scouring process. The degradation half-time of profenofos in scouring bath was only 3.0 min, and the degradation product was also 4-bromo-2-chlorophenol. Cotton products made of profenofos-carrying fiber are safe; however, the scouring waste should be detoxicated before discharge due to the accumulation of 4-bromo-2-chlorophenol in the scouring bath. These results could be useful for evaluating the risk of cotton fiber from the profenofos applied fields.

The color of naturally colored silk (NCS) fades easily during home washing due to the loss of pigment accompanied by dissolution of the sericin. In this study, phytic acid was used to cross-link the sericin of NCS and reduce its solubility, aiming at improving the color fastness of NCS to repeated washing. It was found that the sericin-fixing effect increased as the concentration of phytic acid to 1.0 wt% and the cross-linking time to 5 h increased and then reached a constant level. Cross-linking at pH 7.0-8.5 and temperature 30-40°C could obtain relatively good sericin-fixing effects. The cross-linked NCS showed low sericin loss during the degumming and had much better color fastness to repeated washing as compared with the samples before cross-linking. The cross-linking method proposed in this study may be not only a kind of solution for improving the color fastness of NCS with high practicality but also an alternative for cross-linking sericin-based materials in the biomedical field.

Defoliants carried by cotton fiber could harm production workers and consumers through respiratory and dermal exposure. This study was carried out to evaluate the dissipation behavior of four commonly used defoliants tribufos, diuron, thidiazuron, and ethephon in cotton fiber during field stage and also in cotton scouring using liquid chromatography and gas chromatography. Field trials showed that although all the defoliants dissipated fast, however, the fiber from the tribufos and ethephon applied field had considerable potential to exceed the maximum residue limit when the fiber was harvested at common intervals after application of defoliants. The defoliant residues could be removed completely from the defoliant-carrying cotton textiles during alkaline scouring. The results indicated that attention should be paid to the risk of occupational exposure to these defoliants rather than consumer exposure. Fiber harvest on the tribufos and ethephon applied fields is recommended after a 1-week delay in order to reduce the residues to an acceptable level.

During the extraction of fibers from the bast of A. venetum, there is an issue of the existence of undesirable macromolecules, for example, pectins. Separation of these compounds is mostly done by pretreatment with H₂SO₄ and then by NaOH boiling in the traditional method (Fiber-C). The use of Sulfuric acid for pretreatment may cause harm to both fibers and the environment. In order to overcome these limitations, attempts were made to find a new pretreatment (Fiber-N) method. The hypothetical premise of the new pretreatment strategy dependent on the use of Al₂(SO₄)₃ is presented. Four model solutions were investigated using a method of measuring zeta potential. Furthermore, fibers obtained by pretreatment methods along with the raw fibers of A. venetum had been characterized by Electron spin resonance spectroscopy (ESR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and water retention value (WRV). Results showed that pure salts of Al₂(SO₄)₃ presented improved binding properties with the pectin and causes better swelling and eventually helps to remove pectin than other pretreatment processes. Ultimately, Donnan equilibrium, metal ion complex formation, and Gouy–Chapman–Stern (GCS) model were used to theoretically elucidate the discharging mechanism of pectin macromolecules from A. venetum in the presence of Al³⁺ ions during pretreatment.

In the article titled “Improving the Color Stability of Naturally Colored Silk by Cross-Linking the Sericin with Phytic Acid” [1], there was an error in Figure 4, as the authors uploaded the wrong version of the figure during the production stage. It should be corrected as follows: