To Improve the Wettability of Polyester Fabric

Abstract

The apparels/garments made up of polyester fibre are having the problem of etching of newlineskin, poor perspiration absorption, rough to skin and poor aesthetic feel. The content of newlinepolyester fibre in fabrics/garments has major role in comfort properties of the fabrics. As the newlinepercentage of polyester fibre increases in polyester rich fabrics, discomfort increase and there newlinewill be need to make the fabric comfortable. Therefore, it is essential that polyester should be newlinehydrophilic in nature and possess good moisture transport. newlineThe conventional method in industry to make the polyester surface hydrophilic chemically newlineis chemical treatment of polyester fibre with sodium hydroxide at given concentration, newlinetemperature and time in presence of catalyst. The concentration of sodium hydroxide required newlinein treatment varies from 10-15 g/l. After the treatment, the polyester fibre show good wicking newlinepower. The polyester became very soft and hydrophilic. Due to very high concentration of newlinesodium hydroxide required in weight reduction treatment, there were some quality related newlineproblems arised in fabric such as change of color, frosting, loss of tensile strength, high newlineweight loss %, poor aesthetic properties and high alkalinity in the fabric. The residual alkali newlineleft in the bath after weight reduction treatment had been thrown in the effluent line. To newlineneutralize this alkali, very high amount of acid is required, which produces high quantity of newlinesalt in the effluent water and consequently heavy ETP load in terms of TDS and alkanity. newlineIn order to improve the quality related issues of fabrics/garments having high content of newlinepolyester due to weight reduction treatment, in this research work, we had tried to replace newlinesome amount of caustic alkali (NaOH) in recipe with another alkali potassium hydroxide newline(KOH).