Polyethylene(?) fluorescent dye quenching

[btrueblood]

I think I know the answer to this, but want to ask.

Lots of fleece clothing on the market these days, it's cheap and warm. Makes good hunting clothing. But most of it also has optical brighteners or UV dyes (OBA's) added, and I assume it's added to the melt prior to being extruded to fibers. The OBA's would tend to counteract the purpose of camoflage for hunting, tending to make the user glow bright blue when outdoors, even in low light.

If I'm right, and the OBA is added to the melt of the poly fiber, is it possible to quench these dyes after the fact, i.e. washing in a chemical compound or application of a spray coating (durable or otherwise). I know there are products that can do this for paper fibers, but those are water-soluble and are intended to react with similarly water-soluble OBA's used in paper finishing. There are some products marketed as quenching or killing the effect of OBA's on clothing/textiles, but I wonder how effective they can be on poly fabrics.

 

[patprimmer]

Compo

OBAs are UV absorbers and are commonly used as such to improve UV stability in plastics. Although they absoprb the invisable UV light, the re-emit it as visable. This is counter productive in camoflarge. If UV absorbers are used, care must be taken to use ones that do not re-emit at a frequency visable to the prey or that at least emits at a similar level to the surroundings.

Regards
Pat
See FAQ731-376 for tips on use of eng-tips by professional engineers &

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm

for site rules