Process for imparting hydrophilicity to fabric

Claim 1

A process to impart durable hydrophilicity to fabric which comprises: (a) treating a polyester fabric with a neat composition, solution or dispersion containing: (i) at least about 0.001% by solution weight or neat composition weight of an acid catalyst selected from the group consisting of p-toluene sulfonic acid and zinc fluoroborate, and (ii) from about 0.1% to about 5% by solution weight or neat composition weight of a graft copolymer prepared by grafting to a poly(oxyalkylene) from about 0.5% to about 50% by graft copolymer weight of an N-(oxymethyl)-acrylamide having the formula: ##STR3## wherein R 1 , R 2 , R 3 and R 4 are hydrogen or monovalent hydrocarbon radicals containing from 1 to 6 carbon atoms each and may be the same or different to a poly(oxyalkylene) of the formula: R.sup.5 [(OC.sub.2 H.sub.4).sub.x (OC.sub.3 H.sub.6).sub.z OR.sup.6 ].sub.a wherein R 5 is a hydrocarbon radical having a valence of a and containing up to about 21 carbon atoms, a is an integer having a value between 1 and 4, R 6 is a hydrogen atom or hydrocarbon radical containing up to about 6 carbon atoms and x is an integer having a value from about 2 to about 5000, and z is an integer having a value from about zero to about 5000; (b) drying said treated textile fabric at a temperature between about 100° C. and about 170° C. to produce a fabric having a wettability of no more than 40 seconds after 20 launderings in accordance with AATCC Test Methods 39-1977 and 130-1977, respectively.