Optimizing a fabricating program for wearable super-hydrophobic cotton by clean production technology of plasma and reducing chemical consumption

Abstract

The atmospheric-pressure cold plasma jet was used as a clean production technology together with fluorine-free water repellent agent (FfWRA) to optimize the fabricating program for wearable super-hydrophobic cotton. By the contrasting test of sample surfaces treated via FfWRA and by plasma in advance with fluorine-free agent (P-FfWRA), it was concluded that the plasma can evidently strengthen the hydrophobic finishing effect. Hydrophobicity study indicates the contact angle on sample treated by P-FfWRA reached 153°. Even more important, meantime a 44.4% reduction in the chemical consumption can be achieved with the optimization method. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) and atomic force microscope (AFM) observations verified that large amounts of nano-scaled roughness uniformly presented on the modified fiber surface. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurements reveals that there was a reduction of up to 40% in oxygenous groups on the cotton fabric processed by P-FfWRA. The washing test show that the P-FfWRA treated sample still have a strong hydrophobic surface with a contact angle of 147°even after washing 25 times. The breathability of the modified sample even has a small increase due to the variation in fiber diameter after the modification. The optimized fabricating program has been proved to be an environmentally friendly, high efficiency production technology. This paper provides theoretical support and practical significance for further research on the saving of the chemical consumption.