Underwater Diaphragm Discharge for Textile Treatment

Underwater plasma discharge is used for surface activation of polypropylene nonwoven fabrics with subsequent immobilisation of silver or copper. Plasma generated at atmospheric pressure is preferred as this is a low cost and environmental considerate technique in comparison with other techniques. At the same time, the antibacterial properties of silver and copper are well known. The underwater discharge makes possible immobilisation of silver or copper on surface textiles such as polypropylene (PP) textile. We used optical emission spectroscopy (OES) for plasma diagnostics. Size and distribution of dispersed particles were measured by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and the chemical nature of crystals was confirmed by the Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis of the sample.