The behavior in finishing of textile materials made of man-made fibers containing ZnO in blends with cotton

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the behavior in finishing of textile materials made of man-made fibers containing ZnO in blends with cotton. It has been studied the possibilities of reducing the concentration of the chemical agents considered to be aggressive for the functional textile fibers, the temperature and the duration of the processes, as well as the number of technological operations performed, so that the dyeing quality will not suffer and the dyed samples to be acceptable from the uniformity and fastness point of view. To highlight the influence of the chemical auxiliaries used in finishing operations, the process temperature, pH and the treatment duration on the phys - ical-chemical and physical-mechanical characteristics of the functional fibers, various methods of preliminary treatment and dyeing were applied in different experimental variants. In order to assess the preliminary treatments performance from whiteness degree and hydrophilicity point of view, the fabrics were tested before and after preliminary treatments. Finished fabrics (preliminary treated and dyed) were tested for the efficiency of the performed treatments in terms of color difference attributes and color fastness. The finished fabrics were also characterized in terms of the main physical-chemical and physical-mechanical characteristics: mass, tensile strength, tearing strength, water vapor permeability, air permeability. SEM analysis was used to investigate the surface morphology of treated fabrics. Antibacterial activity of treated samples was tested against the Staphylococcus aureus test strain.