Effect of silicone nano-emulsion softener on physical properties of cotton fabric D P Chattopadhyay a & D D Vyas b
Department of Textile Chemistry, Faculty of Technology & Engineering, The M S University of Baroda, Vadodara 390 001, India Received 15 April 2009; revised received and accepted 8 July 2009 The effect of silicone nano-emulsion softener against silicone conventional emulsion softener on the physical properties of cotton fabric has been studied. It is observed that the nano-emulsion softener improves the feel, softness and crease recovery to a higher extent compared to the conventional emulsion softener. However, the nano form of emulsion causes higher loss in strength with increased elongation-at-break. The water absorbency of nano-emulsion treated fabric is found to be poorer than that of the conventional emulsion. Keywords: Bending length, Cotton, Conventional emulsion, Crease recovery angle, Nano emulsion, Silicone In textile industry, cotton is widely used because of its superior properties. Cotton and cotton blended fabrics are subjected to various chemical treatments during their processing. Finishing, the final step of chemical processing, is carried out to improve the properties, attractiveness and serviceability of textile materials. The treatment of textiles with substances that modify their surface properties has been a common practice since most ancient times. Softening of textiles becomes an important finishing process of many after-treatment processes in a textile chemical processing industry. The hand of a fabric is a subjective sensation felt by the skin when a textile fabric is touched with the finger tips and gently compressed. The perceived softness of a textile is the combination of several measurable physical phenomena, such as elasticity, compressibility and smoothness. Silicone finishes are widely recognized as the best materials for increasing the softness of fabrics, enhancing their aesthetic feel and imparting an excellent hand 1 . Silicones have been responsible for giving super softness to fabrics over the years, and the quest to produce the optimum handle for apparel fabrics with suitable comfort properties has presented an interesting challenge. Silicones and their modifications, such as dimethyl silicone, methyl hydrogen silicone, amino silicone, polyether modified silicone, epoxy, carboxyl and amide, give varying softness with different comfort properties. Amino silicones are known to impart extremely soft handle. At present amino-functional silicon elastomers are the most efficient softeners in the field of textile finishing. During the application, generally done in acidic conditions, these amino groups are quaternized to cationic species which have a stronger attraction for the negatively charged fabric. This is particularly true for cotton-based fabrics, which develps a negatively charged surface in aqueous bath. This improves deposition, performance and durability of the softener coating. These polysiloxane softeners are best delivered to the textile surface in the form of an emulsion. Nanotechnology has stirred all the branches of technology and textile is no exception 2,3 . The silicone emulsions are also manufactured in nano form. There is sufficient information available on the effect of conventional silicone emulsion application on the properties of textile fibres 4-7 . But very little information on the effect of silicone nano emulsion on the properties of cotton fabric has been found in the literature. The present work was, therefore, aimed at investigating the performance of silicone nano emulsion against silicone conventional emulsion on various properties of cotton fabrics like softness, feel, wrinkle recovery, absorbency, soiling and tensile properties. Desized, scoured and bleached cotton fabric with the following specifications was used: weave, plain; areal density, 120 g/m 2 , ends/inch, 142; and picks/inch, 40. Amino polysiloxane silicone softener was collected in two forms, viz nano-emulsion and conventional emulsion softeners. Acetic acid was used for adjusting the pH of the finish bath. Carbon powder was used as artificial soil 8,9 . Both the forms of the emulsions were applied from a pad bath
a To whom all the correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: dpchat6@gmail.com b Present address: R. C. Technical Institute, Sola, Ahmedabad 380 060. SHORT COMMUNICATION
69 containing silicone softener at a pH 5. The concentrations of conventional and nanoemulsion softness were 20 g/L and 10 g/L respectively. The padded fabric was dried and cured at 150C for 3 min. The bending length, a measure of fabric softness, was measured as per IS: 6490-171(cantilever test) using Sasmira stiffness tester. Crease recovery angle of the control and treated samples was measured using Shirley crease recovery tester as detailed in IS: 4681-1968. Breaking load of fabric samples was measured before and after treatment as per IS: 1969-1968 using Instron tensile tester (Model 1122) with a traverse speed of 100mm/min. The per cent loss in breaking load was also calculated for each treatment. For the assessment of absorbency of the samples, a drop of water was put on the fabric surface and the time taken by the water droplet to get absorbed by the fabric was noted. After the application of both the silicone emulsions, the feel of the fabric samples was assessed by a panel of examiners and given a grade for the same. The yellowness developed on the samples during the curing step of the softener application was measured in terms of yellowness index (ASTM D1925). Artificial soiling of the finished samples was performed by tumbling them in launderometer along with carbon powder and little grease. There are various techniques available for the evaluation of soiling of textiles. Soiling leads to loss in whiteness or brightness of textile materials. One of the methods, therefore, is to assess the optical effect. Soiling causes a reduction in the total reflectance of the textiles, which, in turn, drops the whiteness index, as the later is related to the reflection. The extent of soiling was, therefore, evaluated by the change in whiteness measured in terms of whiteness index.
Effect on Bending Length and Crease Recovery The conventional silicone emulsion and its nano form were applied to the well prepared cotton fabric samples by pad-dry-cure technique. Table 1 shows the results of such application on the bending length and crease recovery angle of these samples. It is observed that the application of softener reduces the bending length and improves the crease recovery angle of the samples. Silicone emulsion acts as a lubricating agent between the fibres in the yarn and between the yarns of the fabric, imparting softness to the material. This softness causes a reduction in bending length of fabric. The bending length and rigidity of the textile material are directly related to each other. The drop in bending length is thus indicative of reduced rigidity or improved softness of the fabric samples. Silicones softening capability comes from the siloxane backbones flexibility and its freedom of rotation along the Si-O bonds. Low bond energy and low bond rotational energy contribute to a high degree of rotation of Si-O-Si back bone. This freedom of rotation leads to a unique flexibility of siloxane molecules 10,11 . The improvement in softness due to silicone softener application is also reflected by the enhancement of crease recovery angle. Thus, both the softeners could reduce the bending lengths and improves the crease recovery angles, but the effect is found to be more pronounced in the nano form. Cotton fibre is made of fibrillar structure. The droplet size of nano emulsion is so small that it can penetrate the micro and nano structures very well compared to the droplets of macro emulsions. Thus, silicone nano emulsions have unique penetrability inside the fabric and fibre structure which results in the improvement in both bending length and crease recovery.
Effect on Tensile Properties The effect of conventional and nano silicone emulsions on tensile properties is also presented in Table 1. It is observed that the application of softeners results in a loss in breaking load with increased elongation-at-break. The silicone emulsion, as discussed earlier, reduces the friction between the fibres in a yarn and between the yarns within the fabric which results in more slippage of these entities, which, in turn, causes reduction in load bearing capacity with increased elongation on load. The reduction in breaking load with the rise in elongation due to application of silicone softener on cotton
Table 1 Effect of conventional and nano emulsion of silicone on some physical properties of fabric Sample Bending length cm Crease recovery angle (warp + weft) deg Loss in breaking load % Increase in elongation % Control 4.9 135 - - Treated with silicone conventional emulsion 4.7 144 8.7 10.7 Treated with silicone nano emulsion 4.4 155 15.7 18.5 INDIAN J. FIBRE TEXT. RES., MARCH 2010
70 textiles was also observed by Cheng et al. 12 . Nano emulsion, because of its better penetrability and higher surface area coverage, has exaggerated the effect which is manifested in the results.
Effect of Curing Time on Yellowing One limitation with the aminofunctional silicone is that the amino group which is responsible for many unique properties also results in a propensity to yellowing, particularly during curing or drying. The likelihood of yellowing increases with increasing amino content. Therefore, for examining the effect of curing time on yellowing of silicone emulsion treated fabric, both the forms of silicone emulsions were applied to the cotton fabric samples by padding technique and after drying these samples were subjected to curing for 3, 6 and 9 min at 150C (Table 2). It is evident from the results that an increase in curing time at constant temperature increases the yellowing of the treated samples for both the forms of the softeners. But interestingly the increase in time of curing shows a much milder effect in case of nano silicone emulsion applied fabrics, so far as yellowness is concerned.
Effect of Soiling on Finished Fabric After the application of artificial soil, the fabric samples were shaken for a few minutes to remove the loosely mounted soils from the fabric surface. Then the assessment of the extent of soiling was measured in terms of change in whiteness of the samples. Table 3 shows the effect of soiling on the finished samples. The whiteness of the samples treated with silicone nano-emulsion softener is found to be higher as compared to the samples treated with conventional emulsion. Thus, the sample treated with silicone nano emulsion softener shows higher soil resistance compared to its conventional counterpart and exhibits better whiteness properties. Improved soil resistance of nano-emulsion finished fabric may be attributed to the better coverage of the fabric by the nano emulsion, which left little space to accommodate soil particles during subsequent soiling treatment.
Effect on Absorbency and Feel In addition to soft feeling, silicone finishing in general imparts water repellent property to the textiles. Such water repellency property is provided by methyl groups which are oriented and attached to the fibre surface by silicone links. The absorbency of different samples was, therefore, determined by putting a drop of water on the surface of the sample. The time taken by the water droplet to get absorbed by the fabric was noted. Lesser time taken by the water droplet to get absorbed by the fabric indicates better absorbency. Table 4 shows the effect of silicone nano emulsion softener against silicone conventional emulsion softener on the absorbency of the samples. It is evident from the results that the nano form of the emulsion makes the fabric more water repellent compared to its conventional counterpart. The objective evaluation of the hand feel of the fabric after application of both the forms of emulsion was done by a panel of examiners and given an arbitary grade (Table 4) for the same. Nano-emulsion softener covers each fibre and reduces the friction between them which subsequently increases their mobility that results in better softness. The effect of silicone nano emulsion on the properties of cotton fabric was studied and compared with the conventional silicone emulsion. Application of both the forms of emulsion causes reduction in the [ Table 2 Effect of curing time on yellowing of cotton fabric Sample Yellowness index 3 min 6 min 9min Treated with silicone conventional emulsion 10.50 12.50 (19.0) 13.43 (27.9) Treated with silicone nano emulsion 9.79 10.38 (6.0) 11.13 (13.7) 3,6 and 9 min are curing time. Values in parentheses indicate % increase in yellowness compared to the previous sample. [ Table 3 Effect of soiling on finished fabric Sample Whiteness index (Hunter lab) Before soiling After soiling Treated with silicone conventional emulsion 45.50 33.46 (26.4) Treated with silicone nano emulsion 49.72 43.39 (12.7) Values in parentheses indicate % decrease in whiteness due to soiling. [ Table 4 Effect of silicone softeners on absorbency and feel of treated fabrics Sample Time, s Feel (grade) Control 3 1 Treated with silicone conventional emulsion 5 3 Treated with silicone nano emulsion 7 5 SHORT COMMUNICATION
71 bending length and improvement in the recovery angle after creasing. However, the extent of the effect is found to be more with nano emulsion. It is found that the nano form leads to more loss in load bearing capacity of the treated samples. The effect of curing time on the development of yellowing on the nano treated samples is found to be comparatively lesser. The objective evaluation of the feel of the fabric shows a better performance of the nano silicone emulsion.
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