Journal of Materials Research and Technology (May 2020)
A novel method for improving the anti-pilling property of knitted wool fabric with engineered water nanostructures
Abstract
Pilling is a major problem in knitted wool fabric, which not only causes unsightly appearance and uncomfortable handle of the fabric, but also reduces the service life of textile product. Most of the existing technologies for pilling resistance are not environmentally friendly owing to the use of great amount of heated water and chemicals and the generation of polluting effluents or absorbable toxic exhaust. In this work, an effective and environmentally friendly technology was proposed to address above challenging issues. A novel Engineered Water Nanostructures (EWNS) experiment platform has been established to produce EWNS in a controllable manner. The optimized generation system, based on the mechanism of electrospray, was found to produce ROS 103 times faster than the previous study, with an EWNS average diameter of 36.36 ± 7.11 nm. It was indicated that EWNS played a significant role in the pilling resistance treatment of the wool fabric. The results revealed that smoothing cuticle scale of wool fiber by EWNS treatment resulted in the decrease of the fiber friction coefficients which could be one of the reasons for the improved anti-pilling property of knitted wool fabric. And the ROS are the possible substances which are highly reactive and capable to decompose the proteins of the wool. The nanoscale water maybe another reason for improving the mobility of the entangled fibers. This study clearly demonstrates the potential of EWNS technology to improve the pilling resistance property of fabrics, which can be used in the textile after-finishing and home-caring process.
