Effect of Plasma Treatment on the Moisture Management Properties of Regenerated Bamboo Fabric

Moisture management is the ability of a fabric to transport moisture away from the skin to the garment’s outer surface in multi-dimensions and it is one of key performance criteria in today’s textiles for garments for various end uses. This property has a significant effect on the human perception of moisture sensations as well as the growth of microorganisms. Plasma treatment on textiles is a novel dry processing technique used to enhance comfort, functional and aesthetic properties of regenerated cellulosic fabrics and at the same time reduce the pollution load on the environment. In this study air, argon and oxygen gas plasma treated pure regenerated bamboo fabric in single jersey construction were tested for their moisture management capacity using “SDLATLAS moisture management tester”. Dynamic liquid transport properties of textiles such as wetting time, maximum absorption rate, maximum wetted radius and spreading speed were measured. The result revealed that the type of plasma treatment and the duration of air, argon and oxygen gas plasma treatment have significant effect on all the parameters of the moisture management capacity. In case of all the plasma treated samples the wetting time and the absorption rate (%/sec) increased, both for the top and bottom surface with the highest duration of 8.2 seconds and highest absorption rate of 64.99 (%/sec) respectively, in case of 10 minutes argon plasma treated sample. The spreading speed (mm/sec) decreased in case of all the plasma treated samples. Slow spreading of 2.1(mm/sec) was recorded in case of 5 minutes air plasma treated sample as compared to 3.21 (mm/sec) in case of the untreated sample. In case of argon and oxygen gas plasma the value of accumulative one way transport index and overall moisture management capacity increased, with the highest value of 265 and 2.04 recorded in case of 10 minutes oxygen gas plasma treated sample. The relationship between the duration of treatment and the absorption rate of the bottom surface in the case of bamboo fabrics was linearly related. The results revealed that the effect of air, argon and oxygen gas plasma treatment on the bamboo knitted sample are significant in altering the parameters of the moisture management properties. Ten minutes oxygen gas plasma has led to significant improvement in the overall moisture management. Special needs for a health care and hygiene products, sportswear and infant garments can be met by plasma treated moisture management fabrics.