A plasma aided process for grey cotton fabric pretreatment

Abstract

Abstract An effective and cleaner production process was developed in the present work for grey cotton fabric pretreatment with an aid of low-pressure nitrogen plasma in combination with a subsequent wild and one-step wet chemical treatment. The influences of plasma parameters, such as nitrogen pressure, discharge power and exposure time on pretreatment efficiencies and fabric main properties were investigated, as well as a comparison of different processes for the grey fabric. The results show that significant improvements in desizing, scouring and bleaching effects could be available with the aid of plasma previous treatment. The weight loss, impurity removal, capillary rise height and whiteness of the substrate were improved with plasma discharge power from 50.0 W to 300.0 W, and a notable deterioration of fabric strength was also observed at discharge power as high as 350.0 W. Moreover, most of the pretreatment efficiencies were also enhanced for a favorable exposure time from 3.0 min to 5.0 min or 7.0 min, except for the fabric whiteness and a worse deterioration of fabric strength, especially for an exposure time longer than 7.0 min. However, decreased tendencies in most of the pretreatment efficiencies were observed with nitrogen plasma pressures from 20.0 Pa to 100.0 Pa, with a less deterioration of the tensile strength and a less dependence of the fabric whiteness. Furthermore, the nitrogen plasma treatment effect was further proved by a scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) investigation. The recommended pretreatment process with an aid of plasma was 40.0 Pa of nitrogen gas and 300.0 W glow discharge power for 5.0–7.0 min followed with a wild one-step chemical treatment. In comparison with conventional one-step pretreatment process, comparable pretreatment efficiencies and main properties of cotton fabric were achieved by the proposed method with more environmentally friendly by shortening the conventional wet-chemical treatment process and less consumption of chemicals, water and energy.