Improvement of washing durability of hydrophobic cotton fabrics by polyacidic spacers

摘要

Coatings based on nanosols and inorganic-organic hybrid polymers from sol-gel process was applied to fabricate superhydrophobic surfaces on cotton fabrics. Polyacidic spacers, i.e. succinic acid, adipic acid and 1,2,3,4-butanetetracarboxylic acid, formed chemical bonds with both cotton fabric and silica sol through the formation of ester bond on the surface of cotton fabrics. The esterified cotton fabrics as well as native cotton were then processed with hydrophobic finishing by sol-gel hydrophobic treatment, which exhibited good hydrophobicity with the contact angles larger than 140°. However, the washing durability of esterifed cotton fabrics was higher than that of native cotton. Among all esterified samples, 1,2,3,4-butanetetracarboxylic acid modified cotton showed the best durability, whose contact angle still remains above 130° even after 30 times washing. It could be concluded that the esterification strengthens the interaction between cotton fabric and silica sol, and consequently improves the durability of hydrophobicity.