IMPROVEMENT OF FLAME RETARDANT CHARACTERISTIC OF RAW SILK FABRIC

Authors : Zeynep Ömeroğullari Başyiğit

Pages : 199-206

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Publication Date : 2018-10-01

Article Type : Research

Abstract :In this study, organophosphorus based flame retardant (FR) agent was used in pad-dry-cure-wash treatment in order to enhance the flame retardant characteristics of raw silk fabrics. Silk material is composed of two cores of fibrion surrounded by a layer of sericin which has to be removed from the whole before any chemical finishing treatment. In order to improve the poor wetting capability arising from hydrophobic character of raw silk fabric, degumming process has been widely used for a long time as a necessary process which consume high amount water, chemicals and energy while causing significant weight-loss after the treatment. In today’s conditions, water/chemical-saving methods take important part in textile finishing treatments because of environmental concerns. For this aim; lowtemperature plasma treatment with various gases at different exposure times in different exposure power were applied on some of the raw silk fabrics before FR finishing process while some of the raw silk fabrics were undergone through conventional degumming processes. Flame retardancy, hydrophilicty, weight losses of the samples were tested, respectively. Morphological analyses of samples were tested by SEM and chemical structures of the fabrics were analyzed by FTIR-ATR. According to LOI test results, it was determined that especially nitrogen plasma pre-treatment had a significant improvement in flame retardancy of raw silk fabric. It was concluded as an output of this study that plasma treatment as a pre-treatment improved the flame retardancy of raw silk fabrics and had a significant effect on increasing wettability properties of raw silk fabrics without the necessity of conventional degumming process. 
Keywords : Silk fabric, flame retardant, plasma treatment, wettability