Functional Finishing of Cotton Using Titanium Dioxide and Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles
Abstract
Nanoparticles of TiO2 and ZnO were chemically synthesized by different routes and were characterized using Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X ray diffraction (XRD) and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM). These particles were applied to cotton fabric using 1-10 wt% acrylic binder and cured. The photocatalytic activity of the finished fabric was investigated and a comparison was drawn between the synthesized and commercially available TiO2 (Degussa P25) sample. Experiments were carried out by exposing the coffee stained samples to solar light. The self-cleaning leading to stain discolouration was quantified from the residual concentration of stain to assess the photoactivity of TiO2 and ZnO nanoparticles. An attempt was also made to study the effect of concentration of nanoparticles (0.5-1.0 wt% on weight of fabric (owf) and acrylic binder concentration (1, 2, 10 wt% owf) on the self cleaning action. TiO2 particles with smaller particle size of <10 nm was able to show significantly better activity than the commercial sample. At the same time, finish with nano ZnO though showed a bit lower activity; the self cleaning effect was significant and similar to the commercial TiO2.
Keywords
Citation
Gupta, K.K., Jassal, M. and Agrawal, A.K. (2007), "Functional Finishing of Cotton Using Titanium Dioxide and Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles", Research Journal of Textile and Apparel, Vol. 11 No. 3, pp. 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1108/RJTA-11-03-2007-B001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2007 Emerald Group Publishing Limited