Abstract
Plasma treatment was evaluated as an alternative clean desizing technology in this work. As indicated by weight loss, O 2 plasma treatment efficiently removed sizing agents such as polyvintyl alcohol (PVA), polyacrylic acid esters and their mixture (MIX) on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fabrics. SEM pictures of the plasma treated samples directly proved the disappearance of the sizing agents. XPS analysis showed apparent changes in chemical composition and functional groups of the PET surface after O 2 plasma treatment. Carbon content decreased due to the removal of sizing agents while oxygen content increased. O 2 plasma treatment also increased hydrophilic functional groups of sizing agents, which is confirmed by C 1s and O 1s deconvolution analyses. After O 2 plasma treatment, the PET fabric was subjected to conventional desizing process at different temperatures. Except for the PET fabric sized with PVA, plasma-treated fabrics showed more efficient desizing results when compared with untreated fabrics. Furthermore, the desizing effluent from the treated fabric gave lower TOC, COD and BOD values.
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