Abstract:

Finishing of fabrics has received paramount significance to suit specific end-uses and accordingly research is still in progress to link finishing process and application. Finishing process has acclaimed more popularity especially for dress materials and technical textiles needless to mention about the role of finishing in application like mountaineering, marine engineering, geo-technical engineering etc. Flammability is one of the important features of textile substrate. A number of finishing treatments and processes are made available easily for a processing house.

In this study for the first time, a product named PEKOFLAM is applied to cotton fabric in the form of flame retardant finish. The starting materials were dress materials with GSM in the range 80-260. Along with commercial dress material, a grey fabric was included in the experiment and was subjected to finishing in stages. The finishing agent was applied from 300-500gpl and products were characterized for mechanical properties.

An improvement in tearing strength following finishing was the highlight of the present investigation. It is desired for a technical textile to exhibit higher tearing strength depending on the conditions of use. The results also confirm increase in drape coefficient value which is necessary for a protective textile.

The persistent fire resistance of textiles is an unsolved problem, and that will last as long as no durable treatment, i.e. resistant to many cycles of washing will be found. It is even more problematic when textiles made from fibers of natural origin such as cellulose fibers (cotton for instance) are concerned. Indeed, for this type of fiber, the fire retardant property can only be conferred by means of a surface treatment of the material. Among all textile fibers, cotton is the one most commonly used in domestic applications (clothes, beddings, furnitures, wall-hangings, etc.). However, it is also one of the most flammable materials (LOI 18.4%). It is thus of primary importance for public safety to find ways to render this material less flammable and of course, in a most economically and environmentally friendly manner. Thus, most of the efforts in the area of textile flame retardant finishing have focused on reducing the flammability of cotton.

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This article was carried out in College of Technology, Osmania University, Hyderabad under the guidance of M. Mastan and Dr. J. Hayavadana.