What is optical brightening agent?

Optical brighteners, optical brightening agents (OBAs), fluorescent brightening agents (FBAs), or fluorescent whitening agents (FWAs), are chemical compounds that absorb light in the ultraviolet and violet region (usually 340-370 nm) of the electromagnetic spectrum, and re-emit light in the blue region (typically 420- …

What is the function of optical brightener?

Also called optical brighteners, these are fluorescent materials that can absorb UV light and emit visible (blue–violet) light [55]. Thus, once deposited on fabrics, they enhance the whiteness or brightness appearance of white or lightly coloured fabrics.

What is OBA free paper?

OBA means ‘optical brightening agent’. These chemicals are often added in the coating (see RC papers for instance) or even in some cases, in the base paper itself. They help provide a higher whiteness to the paper.

What is an optical brightener and how does it work?

Optical brighteners are synthetic chemicals that make fabrics appear to glow in the presence of ultraviolet light. They don’t have anything to do with getting things clean — they’re only added to detergents to make us think our laundry is brighter and whiter than it really is.

How many types of optical brighteners are there?

Based on the number of sulphonic groups, brightening agents can be categorised into three main types. These optical brightenets consist of two sulphonic groups. These agents are hydrophobic in nature because of their chemical composition.

What is OBA in detergent?

Optical brightening agents (OBAs), or fluorescent whitening agents (FWAs), or fluorescent brightening agents (FBAs) are chemical compounds with the ability to absorb ultraviolet light and re-emit it in the blue region by fluorescence.

What is OBA color?

Optical brightening agents (OBAs) are chemicals that are added to textiles during bleaching of finishing and use the process of fluorescence to trick your eyes into believing your fabrics are whiter and brighter than they actually are.

What is fluorescent agent?

Optical brighteners, optical brightening agents, fluorescent brightening agents, or fluorescent whitening agents are dyes that absorb light in the UV and violet region (usually 340–370 nm) of the electromagnetic spectrum, and reemit light in the blue region (typically 420–470 nm).

How optical whitening agent increase the whiteness of a bleached fabric?

Fluorescent whitening agents absorb the invisible UV portion of the daylight spectrum and convert this energy into the longer-wavelength visible portion of the spectrum, i.e., into blue to blue-violet light.

What are OBAs paper?

OBA or OBAs, stands for Optical Brightening Agents, they are chemical compounds added to the coating of some papers. They are used to enhance the appearance of colour, whitening the paper by increasing the amount of blue light reflected and, as a result, offsetting the natural yellow tones.