Volume 5 • Issue 6 • 1000216 J Textile Sci Eng ISSN: 2165-8064 JTESE, an open access journal Research Article Open Access Eyupoglu et al., J Textile Sci Eng 2015, 5:6 DOI: 10.4172/2165-8064.1000216 Research Article Open Access ISSN: 2165-8064 Abstract In this study, oxygen and nitrogen plasma treatment was carried out on wool fabrics during 5, 10 and 15 minutes at low (LF) (40 kHz) and radio (RF) (13.59 MHz) frequency. Then the effect of plasma treatment on tear strength, contact angle, whiteness and yellowness index of wool fabrics was investigated. In addition, the hydrophility of plasma treated samples was analyzed after the washing. The physical and chemical properties of wool fabrics treated with oxygen and nitrogen plasma were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). According to the results, nitrogen plasma treatment improved the tear strength of samples. Furthermore, plasma treatment increased the yellowness of samples while decreasing the whiteness index of samples. The hydrophility of samples decreases with plasma treatment and with the increase in plasma treatment time. Moreover, SEM results showed that the plasma treatment caused to occur deformations on the surfaces. Lastly, EDX results showed that the amount of oxygen and nitrogen increased in the surfaces after oxygen and nitrogen plasma treatment. Investigation of the Effect of Different Plasma Treatment Condition on the Properties of Wool Fabrics Eyupoglu S 1 *, Kilinc M 1 and Kut D 2 1 Engineering and Design Faculty, Department of Fashion and Textile Design, Istanbul Commerce University, Istanbul, Turkey 2 Engineering Faculty, Department of Textile Engineering, Uludag University, Bursa, Turkey *Corresponding author: Seyda Eyupoglu, Faculty of Engineering and Design, Department of Fashion and Textile Design, Istanbul Commerce University, Kucukyali E5 Crossroad, Istanbul 34840, Turkey, Tel: +90 444 0 413-3225; E-mail: scanbolat@ticaret.edu.tr Received October 01, 2015; Accepted October 07, 2015; Published October 12, 2015 Citation: Eyupoglu S, Kilinc M, Kut D (2015) Investigation of the Effect of Different Plasma Treatment Condition on the Properties of Wool Fabrics. J Textile Sci Eng 5: 216. doi:10.4172/2165-8064.1000216 Copyright: © 2015 Eyupoglu S, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Keywords: Oxygen plasma; Nitrogen plasma; Wool; Tear strength; Hydrophility; Whiteness; Yellowness index Introduction In textile industry, wool materials have been used for a long time because of their high thermal insulation, comfort and eco-friendliness, while having problems such as felting, pilling, luster and shrinkage [1- 5]. In order to solve these problems, chemical and physical treatments have been recently used. Some chemical treatments used are ozone, enzyme and oxidation treatments while plasma treatment, electron beam irradiation, ion implantation and ultrasonic irradiation are among physical treatments commonly used [6-9]. Plasma technology has been applied in textile industry in order to produce a variety of surface modifcations of textile materials. It also improves a wide range of textile properties such as hydrophobicity, dye exhaustion, adhesion etc. [10]. Furthermore, the use of plasma treatment provides more antibacterial, fame retardant, hydrophobic, hydrophilic, anti-pilling, electric conductivity, anti-static, scouring, anti-felting, ultraviolet protective textile materials [11-15]. Besides, plasma technology, characterized by low consumption of water, energy and chemicals, is a clean, ecologic and dry technique [6,16]. In addition to these advantages, plasma treatment does not infuence textile material bulk properties [17,18]. A variety of gases have been used in plasma treatment such as oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and argon [16]. Each gas gives diferent features to textiles in relation to their chemical groups [19-21]. Te aim of this study is to investigate the efects of plasma treatment and gas type on wool fabrics without any pre-treatment. In pre-treatment, wool fabrics were cleaned by Soxhlet extraction with dichloromethane rinsed with ethanol and deionized water before the plasma treatment [8]. Tis study difers from the others in that wool samples were not scoured. In this study, LF and RF oxygen and nitrogen plasma treatments were performed on wool fabrics for 5, 10 and 15 minutes. Afer the plasma treatment, the efects of plasma gas, time and frequency of treatment on the wool properties such as tear strength, hydrophility, whiteness index and yellowness were investigated. Moreover, the hydrophility of plasma treated samples was tested to analyze the durability of their hydrophobic properties afer washing. Te surface of wool fabrics was analyzed by SEM. Te results demonstrated that nitrogen plasma treatments improved the tear strength of wool fabrics. Moreover, afer the plasma treatment yellowness of samples increased and the whiteness index of samples decreased with the increase in treatment time. Te hydrophility of samples decreased with the plasma treatment. Te results did not change afer the washing, as plasma treated samples were hydrophobic. Material and Methods Fabrics In this study, 100% wool plain weave fabric was used to investigate the diferent efects of plasma treatment on the properties of fabric. Te fabric specimens were 1:1 plain fabrics (24 ends cm -1 , 40 Nm; 22 picks cm -1 , 48 Nm; 40 g/m 2 ). Besides the wool fabrics were not cleaned by Soxhlet extraction with dichloromethane rinsed with ethanol and deionized water before the plasma treatment. Plasma treatment Plasma treatment was performed on wool fabrics with Diener vacuum plasma with oxygen and nitrogen gas. In this study, the efects of diferent gases, frequency intensity and plasma treatment time on wool fabrics were investigated. Wool fabrics were treated with oxygen and nitrogen plasma for 5, 10 and 15 minutes. Afer a lot of Journal of Textile Science & Engineering J o u r n a l o f T e x t il e S c i e n c e & E n g i n e e r i n g ISSN: 2165-8064