Functionality and applications of non-thermal plasma activated textiles: A review

Plasma treatment of textiles is an efficient and nontoxic alternative to the widely used wet chemical method. Unlike plasma treatment, the wet chemical treatment not only degrades the mechanical strength of textiles but environment as well. The chemical finishing of textiles through non-plasma treatment is carried out by modifying the surface and grafting some functional groups on the plasma exposed textile. Plasma treatment only alters the properties of uppermost layer of an exposed material but not its bulk properties. It causes surface activation, chain scission, surface etching, oxidation and de-crystallization of textiles. Therefore, plasma chemistry and applications of plasma modified textiles are the focus of this review. The plasma-fabric interaction and the resultant changes in weight loss, tensile strength, desizing, dyeing, wettability, contact angle, aging and functional groups are discussed in detail. The activation mechanism and type of radicals on the fabric surface are also elaborated in this review. The survey concludes that plasma treatment grafts oxygen, carbon and nitrogen radicals on the surface. An increase or decrease in contact angle depends on conditions of plasma treatment. The aging and hydrophobicity of plasma treated textiles depends on type of plasma precursors, mixture of gases, temperature of reactive species, plasma pressure and exposure time.