In the colouring processes of textile products, more environmentally friendly chemicals and finishing methods should be used instead of conventional ones that harm the environment every day, so that alternative realistic ways to protect nature, both academically and industrially, could be possible. Due to some inconveniences caused by synthetic dyes that are widely used today, in this study, ultrasonic dyeing of wool fabric with Hibiscus sabdariffa was carried out after environmental‐friendly air vacuum plasma application which increased the absorption of the dyes into the textile material. According to the performance results, colour strengths of the wool fabrics were increased significantly. Surface morphology analysis was carried out and etching effects of air vacuum plasma treatment were clearly seen on the micrographs of the treated wool fabrics. An environmental‐friendly green process was achieved through this study and it was concluded that vacuum air plasma treatment could be an alternative green‐process as a pretreatment to increase the dye up‐take of natural dyeing treatment. Moreover, in this study, a feed‐forward neural network (FFNN) model was presented and used for predicting the dyeing properties (L, a, b and K/S) of samples. The experimental results showed that the presented model achieves the regression values greater than 0.9 for all dyeing properties. Consequently, it was considered that the proposed FFNN was successfully modelled and could be efficiently utilised for dyeing characteristics of wool fabrics dyed with natural dye extracted from Hibiscus sabdariffa.

Nowadays, the methods and techniques used in the textile industry are required to be environmentally friendly, and water and energy saving. In addition to these, they should transfer more than one functionality, in other words give multifunctionality to the textile material with reliable and sufficient results in terms of efficiency and permanence. With the increase in and diversification of today's industrial requirements, one functionality on the fabric may be insufficient to meet the requirements, and therefore the subject of multifunctionality holds an important place in the textile industry. Therefore, in this study flame retardant, antibacterial and water-repellent, single-layered multifunctional 100% cotton fabrics with different functionalities on different sides (back and face surfaces) of the fabric were obtained via a chemical foam application method, which has many advantages compared with conventional methods. In some of the experimental parts, impregnation and foam application methods were combined in the process in order to optimize the multifunctionality properties of the fabrics. In order to indicate the performance test of cotton fabric, vertical burning test, contact angle test, antibacterial test against Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria, color spectrum analysis and tearing strength test were carried out while, in terms of characterization tests, Fourier transform infrared (attenuated total reflectance) and scanning electron microscope analyses were performed. According to the test results, the flame retardancy effect of the samples was improved significantly while antibacterial results showed a 99% reduction of bacteria and the finished fabrics demonstrated improved water repellency with contact angles up to 125°. In addition, the functionalities were durable up to 50 washing and 50 drying cycles.

Nowadays, the primary energy resources and existing water reserves in the world are gradually decreasing. Because of global warming and high consumption of energy and water, researches have focused on new technologies and methods which aim of optimum use of resources while applying functionalites to the material. When the energy and water consumption of industries is examined, it could be obviously determined that the textile industry is seen to be at a substantial level. For this reason, in this chapter broad information of application systems including conventional and low-liquor application techniques with updated versions which show notable improvements in textile industry lately, have been detailed in a way of properties, parameters and running mechanisms on textile materials.

This study focuses on the application of environmental-friendly flame retardant (FR) finishing which does not include formaldehyde or halogen based chemicals on cotton fabrics since it has been announced that these kinds of materials have environmental and toxicological hazards. Three different types of FR agents were used in the finishing bath and applied on raw, pre-treated and dyed cotton fabrics, respectively. One of them was the mixture of inorganic and organic salts while the other type was chosen as phosphate structured which have a commercial use in textile industry widely in order to compare the flame retardant effects on cotton. The third type was calcium carbonate based chemical produced in Balıkesir Turkey named Firetex. After finishing treatment of all types of FRs, performance tests as burning tests and color spectrums were carried out beside the characterization tests as SEM and FTIR-ATR analysis. In order to determine the washing durability of the cotton fabrics, each performance test was performed after 5 repeated washing cycle. According to the results, it was observed that both three types of flame retardant agents improved the flame retardant effect of cotton fabrics however the char length of cotton fabric which treated with Firetex was lower than the rest and it was indicated in the study that using natural structured FR could be a new area in green chemistry as a FR textile chemical.

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