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Reducing the pilling propensity of wool knits with a three-step plasma treatment

journal contribution
posted on 2013-01-01, 00:00 authored by Ailan Wan, Xiujuan Dai, Kevin Magniez, J du Plessis, W Yu, Xungai Wang
A three-step plasma treatment, including surface activation with argon, surface functionalization with oxygen and then thin film deposition using a pulsed plasma polymerization of hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDSO), was used in low-pressure plasma to improve the pilling resistance of knitted wool fabric. The pilling propensity of the treated samples was investigated and compared with the pilling propensity of untreated, argon activated and oxygen functionized samples and argon and oxygen plasma-treated samples that were afterwards subject to continuous wave plasma polymerization of HMDSO. With the three-step treatment, a pilling grade of four was achieved for the treated wool fabric, while that of untreated and other plasma-treated was two and three, respectively. For the three-step plasma-treated sample, a uniform HMDSO polymer coating of 300 nm thickness was obtained; X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) showed the presence of the silicone element, and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy confirmed the chemical structure of the coating. No apparent differences were found in the whiteness index between the treated and untreated wool knits, but there was deterioration in the bursting strength and handle of the plasma-treated wool samples.

History

Journal

Textile research journal

Volume

83

Issue

19

Pagination

2051 - 2059

Publisher

Sage Publications

Location

London, England

ISSN

0040-5175

eISSN

1746-7748

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2013, Sage Publishing