Plasma effects on anti-felting properties of wool fabrics

Low temperature plasma (LIP) is nowadays an intensively investigated superficial treatment of wool. In this work we have investigated the effect of LIP on wool fabric under different conditions. The effect of the position of samples inside the reactor and the kind of gases used as discharge medium has been also investigated. The results show that not only the topography of the surface is modified but also the chemical composition of the surface. It is shown that the hydrophilicity of the samples and also their shrink resistance and anti-felting behavior have improved significantly under LIP treatment. The results show that the shrinkage of 30.1% for untreated samples has reduced to about 1.5% or even less depending on the sample position and the kind of gases used. Many analytical skills such as XRD, FOR, and SEM were used to characterize the different aspects of the treated fabric. The details of the experiment are discussed in the text. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.