Plasma finishing can improve the hydrophilicity of polyester fabrics. Plasma treatment introduces functional groups like carboxylic acids onto fabric surfaces through chain scission and re-deposition, making fabrics more wettable. Treatment time and power affect moisture absorption, with longer treatments and higher power increasing hydrophilicity. While oxygen and water plasmas increase wettability, the effect decreases over time. Graft polymerization provides more durable hydrophilicity. Plasma is advantageous for being environmentally friendly, requiring no chemicals or additional drying, and not damaging fabrics. The textile industry has growing interest in plasma finishing as a novel technology.

1. PLASMA FINISHING OF
POLYESTER FABRICS FOR
IMPROVING
HYDROPHILICITY
VIVEK YADAV
9457631264
TEXTILE CHEMISTRY
NITRA TECHNICAL CAMPUS
vivekntcgzb@gmail.com

2. INTRODUCTION
 Plasma – defined as the “4th state of matter”
 Found in the universe as Solar coronas,
lightning bolts and nuclear fusion

3. CLASSIFICATION OF PLASMA
 Hot-temperature plasma ( about100 million °C)
 Low-temperature ( ≈ near 50 °C - used for textile
applications)
 Low pressure
 Atmospheric pressure

5.  Plasma find its application in semiconductor
microchip manufacturing, in automotive and
aerospace industries and so on.
 From the past decade, textile chemical processing
industry has become more interested in plasma
applications as a novel finishing technology .

6. WHY PLASMA ?

7. Advantages of Plasma
 Environmental friendly technique : because of the
low energy consumption, the fact it is a dry
technique (no additional drying step), no waste
disposal problem and disposal cost.
 Operator friendly technique : no chemical
products, gases, etc.
 No substrate damage or bulk property changes

8. APPLICATION OF PLASMA IN
TEXTILE
 Desizing
 Wettability enhancement
 Water/soil-repellency
 Printability
 Dyeability
 Shrink-resistance
 Adhesion enhancement
 Sterilization, etc.

9. PLASMA SYSTEMS FOR TEXTILES
 Low-pressure plasma systems
 Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Systems
1. Continuous plasma processing
2. Semi-continuous plasma processing
3. Roll - to - Roll Plasma processing

10. Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Systems
 Corona discharge
 Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD)
 Atmospheric plasma glow discharge

11. PLASMA –SUBSTRATE
INTERACTION
Cleaning
Activation
Deposition
Grafting

12. PRINCIPLE OF PLASMA
APPLICATION TO TEXTILE

13. HYDROPHILICITY
ENHANCEMENT OF POLYESTER
(PET) FABRICS
 Plasma treatment in oxygen containing gas.
 Introduces various functional groups (–CO-, -C=O,
-COOH, -C-O-O-, O-COO- ) on the surface.
 Water (H2O) and H2O2 plasmas introduces alcohol and
carboxylic acid groups inducing hydrophilicity.
 But “Ageing” is the problem associated with those kind
of plasma treatments
 Plasma graft polymerization - acrylic acid, nitro
compounds, 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate, methyl
methacrylate, acrylamide and acrylonitrile.

14. MECHANISMS OF SURFACE
MODIFICATION
Etching and Re-deposition
SEM image of
treated PET
SEM image of
untreated PET

15. Chain Scission and Functionalization
 Ion bombardment into substrate surface during
exposure to atmospheric plasma introduces chain
scission of molecules on the substrate’s surface

18. EFFECT OF PLASMA TREATMENT
ON HYDROPHILICITY OF PET
Effect of treatment time and power on moisture
content of PET fabric (at 40 % RH) [Bhat et al.]

19. Contact Angle Measurement of Plasma Treated
PET Films [Jerome et al]

20. Weight Loss (%) of Plasma Treated PET Films with
Different Storage Conditions (He/O2: He flow rate =
12 lpm) [Jerome et al]

21. Water contact angle of a PET film as a function of treatment
time for different operating pressures and for different gas
flow rate between the electrodes [Morent et al]

22. PLASMA MACHINERY
MANUFACTURES
 Europlasma, Belgium
 Unitex S.P.A., Italy
 4thstate Inc., U.S.A.
 APJet Inc., U.S.A.
 Enercon Industries Corporation, U.S.A.

23. CONCLUSION
Plasma can be an interesting alternative or
solution with described advantages of being
environmental and operator friendly, dry and
complete controllable. Therefore, plasma knows a
growing market.

24. THANK YOU