UV Curable Textile Finishes: superhydrophobic and oleophobic, side-specific, dual finish treatment of cotton for apparel, home, technical and sport textiles

Cellulose-based materials are one of the most widely used materials provided by nature to mankind. In particular, cotton fibres have been used for millennia to produce clothing items due to its properties such as hydrophilicity and permeability to water vapour. However, increasingly sophisticated uses for cotton-based clothing (e.g. technical textiles) demand specific properties such as hydrophobicity and oleophobicity for stain repellent functions. The current surface treatments used to attain these functionalities are based on thermally initiated polymerization reactions, using water-based formulations. Thus, the current technologies are energy and waterintensive.

The advantages of using alternative polymerization routes based on actinic radiation are thus clear and include lower energy consumptions, increased processing speeds and smaller plant space. However, example current drawbacks include issues related to the loss of substrate flexibility, breathability and hand. In order to overcome these issues, a surface treatment has been developed based on UV-curable polymeric materials that provide superhydrophobic and oleophobic properties to cotton substrates, maintaining intrinsic useful properties of cotton fabrics such as pleasant hand. Furthermore, the treatment can be sidespecific and is resistant to common washing processes. In this paper are reported the innovative surface treatment formulations and procedures developed.

KEYWORDS: Cotton, superhydrophobicity, oleophobicity, photopolymerisation, wash fastness