Textile functionality can be complimented using nano-scale coatings, integrating electro conductive yarns, sensors and electronic systems. Therefore, integration of electroconductive materials in products needs a special care, because they are easily damaged by hydrothermal treatments. As concluded in the previous studies, the sol gel technique is effective for the modification of textiles. The focus of this study is to modify pure cotton yarns before the complicated electroconductive systems are integrated into knitwear. The modification of textile materials with silica-based sol and zinc acetate dihydrate as the modifier can provide new properties, such as self-cleaning, antibacterial and UV -protection simultaneously improving particular mechanical properties like tensile strength and resistance to abrasion. However, it is important that the modification does not negatively affect the wear comfort properties of the final product. Therefore, air and water vapour permeability had to be tested as a significant indicator of wear comfort. The final samples are produced by blending modified or unmodified cotton yarns (75 wt %) with polyamide (21 wt %) and elastane (5 wt %) and knitting a plainwovenknitwear. For that four hanks of cotton yarns were modified in a silica-based sol, with 7.5 wt % zinc acetate dehydrate integrated as a modifier; following an after-treatment consolidation for 5 minutes at 120 ºC. As the nanoscale coating merges with the modified surface, the linear density of the fabric increases, resulting in the decrease of air permeability. In this case the average air permeability of the samples containing modified yarn decreases by 20 %, comparing to the ones with unmodified. A slight decrease (3 %) was observed for water vapour permeability. Such decrease is considered as not critical to significantly affect the comfort properties. Wear resistance tests of the obtained knitwear, using a non-oriented (randomly across the surface) friction testing method, show significant surface defects for the unmodified samples after 5·10 3 friction cycles, whereas for the modified samples -after 1 .5·10 4 to 2· 10 4 friction cycles.

The functionality of textiles can be complimented by using a wide variety of modification technologies. This study focuses on textile modification with sol-gel technology as a part of smart sock prototype development. Zinc acetate dehydrate (ZAD) is integrated in sol synthesis and used as modifier thus improving modified cotton yarn mechanical properties and also can prolong time between washing, taking into account modifiers antimicrobial properties. Four hanks of pure cotton yarns with length of 300 m, where modified with silica-based sol with 7,5 wt% ZAD as a modifier. As a part of this study tensile strength and elongation of yarn was determined and changes in liner density were observed. Average yarn linear density increases by 19 % and linear density for knitted samples increases by 2,6 %. Therefore, yarn strength for 80 % of modified samples shows mean value of 2,32 N, that is 17 % higher than unmodified samples.