The novel technology of the functional fabric composed of polypropylene non-woven selvages, polyester filaments and copper wire

Abstract

Our process and products were innovative and creative. In order to produce multifunctional fibre products, we combined two or more different kinds of fibres, instead of one single fibre, to spin the ply yarn and weave them into fabrics in the hope that the final products would meet our requirements. The process in this research was innovative and high technical. The ply yarn and fabrics we made possessed high performance and diversity, and they were recyclable and practical. The ply yarn consisting of polypropylene non-woven selvages, copper wires and polyester filaments with a rotor twister possessed superior electrical and mechanical properties due to the natural characteristics of the filaments. The ply yarn was produced under different conditions of twister counts and rotor speeds, and then was woven with a rapier loom. By varying manufacturing parameters, the helix angle and tightness of the twist-wrapped yarn were also changed to enhance the mechanical properties and EMI shielding effectiveness. In this paper, the optimum condition for producing the ply yarn wrapped with metallic filaments was under the rotor speed of 8000 rpm and 2.5 turns/cm, and that with polyester filaments was 6000 rpm and 1.0 turn/cm. After the measurement of electromagnetic shielding effectiveness, we found the fabrics that fabricated with the ply yarn could take as the electromagnetic shielding materials. The weight percentage of the metallic fibre was only 3.40–4.45 wt% and the value of the shielding effectiveness was 10–20 dB.