In the development of environmentally friendly wrinkle free cotton technologies butane tetracarboxylic acid (BTCA) has been carefully investigated, and several other aliphatic polycarboxylic acids have been studied as potential candidates[1-4]. It has been widely believed that these polycarboxylic acids will form anhydrides and the more active anhydride can quickly react with cellulose to form crosslinking structures with assistance of catalysts and elevated temperature. Thus, a key requirement for polycarboxylic acid is whether it can form anhydride, a determining factor for crosslinking cotton cellulose. However, we have found that aromatic polycarboxylic acids could undergo a direct esterification reaction with cellulose and provide crosslinking and wrinkle resistance to cotton fabrics, different from the BTCA reaction mechanism [5]. The so-called direct esterification reaction between carboxylic acids and cellulose hydroxyl groups follows the Fisher Esterification mechanism [6], without going through the formation of anhydride of the polycarboxylic acids. It is an acid catalyzed nucleophilic substitution reaction on the carboxylic acid group. Such a reaction mechanism is advantageous since the formation of anhydride normally requires higher temperature and longer time. With financial supports and technical assistance from Cotton Incorporated, we have conducted a systematic investigation on reactions between aromatic polycarboxylic acids with cotton cellulose and further explored the reaction mechanism using 3,3?,4,4?-benzophenone tetracarboxylic acid (BPTCA) as a model. We found that the reaction exactly follows the Fisher reaction mechanism and addition of some alkaline salts of phosphorus containing acids could provide catalytic effects, while anion concentrations of the catalyst salts play another important role in promoting the reaction. We also explored another aromatic polycarboxylic acid, 1,2,4-benzene tricarboxylic acid (BNTCA) as a potential crosslinking agent, and found very interesting information on selecting such acids as ideal wrinkle free agents. In this presentation, we will report the latest progresses and future directions of this research.