Designing Low Environmental Footprint Yarns with Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Processing

The textile industry is one of the largest industrial sectors in the world, and consequently, it is also one of the largest global polluters. Over the past decade, consumer attitudes towards clothing have shifted away from long-lasting, high-quality clothes to low-cost and low-quality ‘fast fashion’. This has led to the number of clothes bought per person in the EU increasing by around 40 %. Given this rapid increase in consumption, the production of textile materials has also increased enormously, with worldwide production of fibres reaching more than 111 million metric tons in last years. The production of fibres is energy and resource-intensive process that results in significant waste generation and greenhouse gas production. In the face of increasing pressure to reduce resource consumption and minimise waste, textile manufacturers across the globe are urgently seeking novel technological approaches to enhance their sustainability. Recent advances by the project team at IJS have demonstrated that cold atmospheric pressure plasma (CAP) treatment of synthetic yarn can induce beneficial surface modifications to synthetic fibres, with a step-change improvement in efficiency compared to other competing methods. These preliminary efforts suggest that CAP could be a breakthrough technology in this global challenge area. Despite these exciting results, the underpinning mechanisms governing CAP interactions with the fibre surface and the impact on dye molecule adhesion remains elusive. Without this vital fundamental information, industrial users will not accept CAP technology, and its true potential may never be realised. To address this complex and multifaceted challenge, this project will apply state of the art diagnostic techniques to uncover the link between the reactive chemical species in the plasma and their impact on the surface characteristics of the yarn. Surface modifications will be analysed, and the underpinning modification pathways elucidated using state of the art analytical methods. Notably, plasma treatment of yarn has the potential to not only improve the quality of fibres but, through informed optimisation, lead to an improvement in the dying process with better incorporation of dye molecules and better dye utilisation at lower temperatures, leading to lower water usage, less energy consumption and fewer CO2 emissions. In order to demonstrate the full potential of the technology in the real world, the newly developed process will be implemented within the production line of the industrial partner Beti d.d. The development of a low environment footprint or so-called ˝low carbon˝ filament yarns will present them with a significant competitive advantage and better market position over their competitors. Furthermore, the underpinning approach and resulting technology will enable improved production quality, thus increasing opportunities to enter new markets whilst contributing to the new European Parliament directions and realisation of a carbon-neutral society.