Advantages and Disadvantages of Plasma Treatment of Textile Materials

In the past 25 years we have focused our attention on plasma treatment of textile materials at the University of Wisconsin Madison. This presentation will cover the overview of some of these efforts. In particular, plasma treatments of textile materials to improve properties such as resistance to flame, water repellency, hydrophobicity, and dye-ability will be discussed. These improvements were achieved using both vacuum and atmospheric plasma pressure. The treated samples were analyzed using various scientific tools such as IR, FTIR, ESCM and ESCA. The desired end-use properties or the efficiency of each treatment was measured by the procedures recommended by the AATCC or ASTM technical manuals. Although Plasma treatment provides a unique opportunity for textile treatment, there are many advantages and disadvantages in comparison to the conventional wet processing of textiles.