This study aimed to establish the effect on comfort of introducing the DOW XLA™ fiber in woven polyester/cotton fabrics used for professional wear end use. The comfort elements analyzed in this study were thermal and moisture sensations, tactile sensations, and pressure sensations. A fabric elasticized with the elastic fiber polybutylene terephthalate (PBT) was also included in the study for comparative purposes. This study was also devoted to establishing how the fabric mechanical and comfort properties change with repeated laundry washes (which is denoted here as the maintenance study). The results indicated that the use of DOW XLA™ fiber inside a core spun yarn to elasticize fabrics for professional wear provided additional comfort over non-elasticized fabrics by adding stretch and an improved hand feel. These fabrics showed a thermophysiological and sensorial comfort that remained constant with washing cycles. The differences in performance found when compared against traditional non-elasticized and PBT-elasticized fabrics were explained as a result of having an elastic fiber in the core of the core spun yarn that had moderated elastic response after yarn and fabric finishing processes.
A major challenge in nanotechnology is that of determining how to introduce green and sustainable principles when assembling individual nanoscale elements to create working devices.For instance, textile nanofinishing is restricted by the many constraints of traditional pad-drycure processes, such as the use of costly chemical procedures to produce nanoparticles (NPs), the high liquid and energy consumption, the production of harmful liquid waste, and multi-step batch operations. By integrating low-cost, scalable, and environmentally benign aerosol processes of the type proposed here into textile nanofinishing, these constraints can be circumvented while leading to a new class of fabrics. The proposed one-step textile nanofinishing process relies on the diffusional deposition of aerosol NPs onto textile fibers. As proof of this concept, we deposit Ag NPs onto a range of textiles and assess their antimicrobial properties for two strains of bacteria (i.e., Staphylococcus Aureus and Klebsiella Pneumoniae).The measurements show that the logarithmic reduction in bacterial count reaches ca. 5.5 (corresponding to a reduction efficiency of 99.96%) when the Ag loading is one order of magnitude less (10 ppm; i.e., 10 mg Ag NPs per kg of textile) than in the textiles treated by traditional wet-routes. The antimicrobial activity does not increase in proportion to the Ag content above 10 ppm as a consequence of a "saturation" effect. Such low loading for
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