Study On The Effects Of Self-cleaning Properties Of Tencel Fabric

With the improvement of people’s living standard and the enhancement of environmental protection consciousness, people pay more attention on the comfort property of clothing. Tencel is a kind of regenerated cellulose fiber with high wet strength, soft-hand feel, good luster and draping properties, however, Tencel fabric is easy to stain. Nowadays, people pay more attention to the application of nano photocatalyst in the textile field which is used to improve the self-cleaning properties of fabrics. The organic pollutants on the fabric surface can be decomposed by self-cleaning finishing under ultraviolet light which can save labor force and water resources.In this paper, Tencel fabric treated by TiO2/SiO2 nanoparticles can obtain self-cleaning performance. The treatment of plasma and ionic cross-linking were used to improve the self-cleaning properties of Tencel fabric. The conclusion is as follows:(1) With the increase of SiO2 content in the sol, the ?E value of fabrics first increased and then decreased, in which the best self-cleaning performance of samples treated by various molar ratio TiO2/SiO2 sol appears at the optimum molar ratio of TiO2/SiO2 sol 50:1 rather than the pure TiO2.(2) With the increase of plasma treatment time, a large number of cracks and craters generated on the fabric surface and the hydrophilic properties of fabric become better. Compared with the fabric treated by TiO2/SiO2 sol, the hydrophilic property, self-cleaning performance and UV resistance of fabric pretreated by plasma before TiO2/SiO2 sol were improved.(3) Wrinkle recovery angle, whiteness index, and breaking strength of treated samples were evaluated to choose the optimum concentration of CHTAC and BTCA. The breaking strength of treated fabric increased, whiteness index decreased, and wrinkle recovery angle first dropped, and then rose with the increase of CHTAC concentration. Considering the above indexes, 20 g/L CHTAC were chosen in this study. With the increment of concentration of BTCA, treated fabric showed worse breaking strength, better whiteness index and wrinkle recovery angle. The results also suggest the concentration of BTCA(60 g/L) imparted sufficient improvement in whiteness index and wrinkle recovery angle with no significant decrease of breaking strength. Infrared spectra analysis shows that CHTAC and BTCA had been grafted on the surface of fabric. The treatment of Tencel fabric with ionic cross-linking left the fabric with more carboxyl groups on the surface, increased the uptake of TiO2 nanoprticles due to the electrostatic attractions between the carboxyl groups and TiO2 nanoprticles. Compared with the fabric treated by TiO2/SiO2 sol, the hydrophilic property, self-cleaning performance and UV resistance of fabric pretreated by ionic cross-linking method before TiO2/SiO2 sol were improved.(4) Moreover, the K/S value was decreased, the ΔE value was increased and the coloration effect was remarkable after the cross-linking finishing, proving that the cross-linking finishing can improve the self-cleaning properties of Tencel fabric. Nevertheless, the combination of plasma and ionic cross-linking treatment also made a significantly positive influence on the function of self-cleaning, compared with fabric treated by TiO2/SiO2 only by monitoring the change of K/S value and the color difference. When the UV irradiation time is 7h, the fabric treated by 1 min plasma +cross-linking+TiO2/SiO2 sol obtained the best self-cleaning properties. In addition, the UV resistance performance of fabrics treated by plasma+cross-linking+TiO2/SiO2 sol were better than that treated only by sol.