Investigation of the pilling properties of polyvinyl phosphonic acid treated fabrics

Abstract

Pilling is an important quality problem in the textile industry and is defined as a fabric defect consisting of a tangle of fibers on the fabric surface. To define this problem, to determine the pilling values with different methods and to improve the pilling values, many studies have been conducted and reported in the literature. This work is about improving the pilling values of fabrics. One of the most effective methods used is chemical finishing. Polyvinyl phosphonic acid (PVPA) is synthesized and characterized to be applied to fabrics in order to reduce the pilling of the fabrics. PVPA was applied to 5 different fabrics by using foulard method in different solution concentrations. Blended fabrics such as polyester, cotton blend or polyester, viscose blend with pilling values between 2-3 were generally chosen, since the pilling values of these blended fabrics are worse and difficult to improve. PVPA effectively led to an improvement of about 1.5-2 degrees of pilling on all fabrics. As the concentration of PVPA increased, pilling and hydrophilicity values improved. It differs from other products to reduce pilling, especially in that it also increases hydrophilicity and is effective in various fabrics such as viscose, polyester, and blended fabrics.