Preparation of hydrophilic woven fabrics: Surface modification of poly(ethylene terephthalate) by grafting of poly(vinyl alcohol) and poly(vinyl alcohol)‐g‐(N‐vinyl‐2‐pyrrolidone)

Abstract

ABSTRACTOne of the most industrially important synthetic textile materials, woven poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) fabrics, have limitations in the usage of casual apparel applications due to their unwanted hydrophobicity. For that reason, in this study, to impart permanent hydrophilicity to the PET fabrics, hydrophilic poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and a PVA‐based copolymer were introduced to the alkaline hydrolysis pretreated PET surface by graft copolymerization for the first time. The graft modification of PET fabric surface was performed with an industrial‐adaptable approach. The synthesis of a novel PVA‐g‐(N‐vinyl‐2‐pyrrolidone) copolymer was achieved by the introduction of glycidyl methacrylate monomer to the PVA backbone. The structure of the copolymer was evidenced by attenuated total reflection–Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and 1H‐NMR techniques. The introduction of PVA and copolymer structures with desired functional groups to the PET fabric surface was confirmed with the X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy technique. It was obtained that the contact angle–wetting time of PET fabric (145° and 98 s) could be dropped to 37° and 0.1 s and 64° and 0.7 s after PVA and copolymer grafting, respectively. This suggests that the graft‐modified PET fabrics may find the potential of use in the textile applications as the alternative hydrophilic materials. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2020, 137, 48584.