Eco-friendly Treatment on Rib Knitting Fabrics Part 2. Effect of the Treatments with natural compounds on Comfort Properties

Abstract

Comfort and handle properties are considered one of the important parts in clothing evaluation and it is also considered pivotal when choosing apparel. Comforts involve thermal and non-thermal components and it depends on the wear situations. Thermal comfort is defined as mind satisfaction with thermal environment. Fabric hand is related to the concept (meaning, sense) of smoothness, softness, style and appearance Knits are comfortable to wear and easy to care for, they are elastic and have stretchy behavior, also they shed wrinkles well, have good handle and easily transmit vapour from the body. Rib cotton pleated fabrics that contain 3% and 7 % lycra) are treated with various natural compounds namely; nanoclay (NC), β-cyclodextrin (CD), chitosan (CH) and citric acid (CA). Treated fabrics were evaluated by determining their comfort, handle and physical mechanical properties such as thermal transmittance , vapor permeability (%), air permeability, thickness, bursting strength, weight, abrasion resistance and density . The applied natural compounds have generally significant effect on the tested properties. They also can enable the usage of the same fabric in both winter and summer.