Established an eco-friendly cotton fabric treating process with enhancing anti-wrinkle performance

This study establishes an eco-friendly anti-wrinkle treating process for cotton fabric. Sodium hydroxide-liquid ammonia pretreatment followed by 6% (w/w) PU100 adding citric acid pad-cure-dry finishing. In this process, citric acid (CA) was used as the fundamental crosslinking agent during finishing because it is a non-formaldehyde based, cost-effective and well wrinkle resistance agent. Environmental-friendly waterborne polyurethane (WPU) was used as an additive to add to the CA finishing solution. Six commercial WPUs were systematically investigated. Fabric properties like wrinkle resistance, tensile strength retention, whiteness, durable press, softness, and wettability were well investigated. Fourier transform infrared spectra and X-ray diffraction spectra were also measured and discussed before and after adding waterborne polyurethane. Tentative mechanism of the interaction among the WPU, CA, and modified cotton fabrics is provided. The effect of cotton fabric pretreatment on fabric performance was also investigated. After the eco-process’s treatment, the fabric wrinkle resistant angle was upgraded to 271 ± 7°, tensile strength retention was maintained at 66.77% ± 3.50% and CIE whiteness was elevated to 52.13 ± 3.21, which are much better than the traditional CA anti-wrinkle finishing based on mercerized cotton fabrics. This study provides useful information for textile researchers and engineers.

Surface treated cotton fabric with stain repellent property for the use in aircraft upholstery

Nanotechnology modifications play a major role in textile industry due to extraordinary properties exhibit in fabrics due to nanomaterials. It offers different functionalities namely self-cleaning, wrinkle resistance, flame retardancy, protection from UV radiations or antibacterial property. Further, it is important to maintain cleanliness in aircraft upholstery always but the airliners have to bear a considerable amount of money to clean up the aircraft upholstery. Interestingly, nanotechnology can provide stain repellence property for fabrics in aircraft upholstery. This study covers a method of developing a stain repellent fabric which was stable even after 25 standard laundering conditions. In this study nanotechnology was used to modify a cotton fabric with stain repellant property. After nanotechnology modification, the surface wettability of the treated fabrics was characterized by static water contact angle measurements before and after 25 washes carried out under standard laundering conditions. Similar testings were carried out for the untreated fabric samples. The static water contact angle for the treated fabric was 161° with the recovery of 97.5% after 25 washing cycles. SEM and AFM micrographs were used to analyze the coatings. Further, the stability of hydrophobicity in the modified cotton fabric after 25 washes was also tested for tea, coffee, and water solutions which are vulnerable stain types in aircraft upholstery. It clearly proved that the modified cotton fabric even after 25 washes showed hydrophobicity for tea, coffee, and water. Therefore, it could be concluded that the developed modified cotton fabric can consider to be used as an aircraft upholstery.

MULTIFUNCTIONALIZATION OF A CELLULOSIC MATERIAL BY MEANS OF A MULTIPLE-STEP COATING PROCESS APPLYING ORGANOTRIALKOXYSILANES

The sol-gel process is an excellent process for coating various substrates and thus imparting new functionalities to the treated material. Cotton fabrics were finished with various silicon alkoxides: tetraethoxysilane, (3-triethoxysilylpropyl)succinic acid anhydride, and (3-glycidyloxy)propyltrimethoxysilane in a one-, two-, and three-step process, applying the pad-dry-cure method. The physico-mechanical parameters: dry crease recovery angle, tensile strength, flexural rigidity, air permeability, abrasion resistance, whiteness index (WI), and water vapor permeability of the as-prepared cotton samples were evaluated. In addition, the coated samples were analyzed by means of Fourier transform-infrared/attenuated reflection spectroscopy, thermal gravimetric analysis, and 3D laser confocal microscopy. To study the wettability, selected alkoxysilane-treated specimens were coated with octyltriethoxysilane. The impregnation with titanium tetraisopropoxide significantly increased the ultraviolet protection factor. The findings make evident that the wrinkle resistance could be improved.

Progress in Sol-Gel Technology for the Coatings of Fabrics

The commercial availability of inorganic/organic precursors for sol-gel formulations is very high and increases day by day. In textile applications, the precursor-synthesized sol-gels along with functional chemicals can be deposited onto textile fabrics in one step by rolling, padding, dip-coating, spraying or spin coating. By using this technology, it is possible to provide fabrics with functional/multi-functional characteristics including flame retardant, anti-mosquito, water- repellent, oil-repellent, anti-bacterial, anti-wrinkle, ultraviolet (UV) protection and self-cleaning properties. These surface properties are discussed, describing the history, basic chemistry, factors affecting the sol-gel synthesis, progress in sol-gel technology along with various parameters controlling sol-gel technology. Additionally, this review deals with the recent progress of sol-gel technology in textiles in addressing fabric finishing, water repellent textiles, oil/water separation, flame retardant, UV protection and self-cleaning, self-sterilizing, wrinkle resistance, heat storage, photochromic and thermochromic color changes and the improvement of the durability and wear resistance properties.

A Review on the Application of Poly(amidoamine) Dendritic Nano-polymers for Modification of Cellulosic Fabrics

Dendritic nano-polymers are recently used in medical and industrial applications. Cationic dendritic polymers can be used for the modification of anionic cellulose fibers. This review deals with the chemical modification of cellulosic fibers with poly(amidoamine) type dendritic polymers. It has been shown that after modification, the physical and mechanical properties including moisture regain, breaking strength, breaking elongation, and Young’s modulus of the treated cotton fibers increase slightly. It is also a possible way to achieve saltfree dyeing with reactive dyes. Several researches concluded that when poly(amidoamine) increases in cellulose fiber, the mechanism of dye adsorption changes from Freundlich to Langmuir model. Moreover, dendritic polymers can be used as a template for inorganic nano-particles. Both poly(amidoamine) silver salts and nano-composites can display antimicrobial activity. On the other hand, the water and oil repellency results showed that poly(amidoamine) dendrimer containing fluorocarbon had better results than conventional ones in relation to performance and washing resistance. To improve wash and wear properties, poly(amidoamine) dendrimers can be modified and applied as a new material for wrinkle resistance of cotton.

Multifunctional silk fabric via surface modification of nano-SiO2

Silk fabrics have poor resistance to ultraviolet (UV) light and to wrinkles. To improve these properties, we propose a finishing method of coating the silk fabric surface with nano-silica (nano-SiO2). The results show that the UV protective factor (UPF) value could reach a maximum of 84.52 after finishing in 10 g/L nano-SiO2 and 20 g/L silane coupling agent (KH570) solution at 80℃. Moreover, the treated silk fabrics showed improved wrinkle resistance and hydrophobicity. The surface morphology and crosslink action of the treated silk fabrics were characterized by scanning electron microscope, energy dispersive spectrometer and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, which proved that nano-SiO2 particles were grafted on to the silk fabric. There was no apparent difference in color between untreated and treated silk fabrics. Thermal stability and cytotoxicity tests showed that the treated silk fabrics had good thermostability and cytocompatibility. The UPF value could be maintained at 77.31 after washing 20 times, which demonstrated that the treated silk fabrics had laundry resistance. Multifunctional silk fabrics with good hydrophobic properties and excellent UV and wrinkle resistance were developed, showing good prospects for their application in self-cleaning, protective and non-ironing clothes.

Silicone Softener for Stain Repellent Stain Release and Wrinkle Resistance Fabric Finishing

In this paper a modified silicone softener was used on the finishing of stain repellent stain release and wrinkle resistance fabrics. The concentrations of silicone softener, durable press resin CTA-705 and process conditions on the properties of treated fabrics were investigated. In analyzing the results, the fabric's softness rating, smoothness and wrinkle recovery angle (WRA) increased with the increase of softener concentration. The use of softener has little effect on the fabrics soil release and oil repellency. Wrinkle recovery angle increased remarkably and softness rating decreased steadily with the increase of CTA-705 concentration. Soil release, oil repellency and softness rating of the treated fabrics increased steadily when the cured temperature was raised from 140°C to 170°C.

Properties of Cotton Fabric Modified with a Chitosan Quaternary Ammonium Salt Nanoparticle

In this study, a novel fibre-reactive nanoparticle was synthesised in three steps. First a water-soluble chitosan derivative, N-[(2-hydroxy-3-trimethylammonium)propyl] chitosan chloride (short for HTCC), was prepared by reacting chitosan with 2,3-epoxypropyltrimethylammonium chloride. Second the HTCC was further modified by reacting it with N-(hydroxymethyl)- acrylamide to prepare a fibre-reactive chitosan derivative, O-methyl acrylamide quaternary ammonium salt of chitosan (short for NMA-HTCC), which can form covalent bonds with cellulose fibre under alkaline conditions. Thirdly NMA-HTCC nanoparticles were prepared by the ionotropic gelation reaction method. The particle size and TEM researches indicated that the globular NMA-HTCC nanoparticle with a size distribution of 15 - 50 nm was successfully prepared and presented good dispersity and stability. Then the NMA-HTCC nanoparticle was used for the textile finishing of cotton fabric. The modified cotton fabric demonstrated excellent durable wrinkle-resistance and antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli, even after 50 repeated launderings. Moreover the shrinkage-resistance of the modified cotton fabric was distinctly improved, and the contact angle was slightly larger, while the whiteness and mechanical properties had not changed in an obvious way.