Thermo-physiological Comfort Performance of Recycled Plain Knitted Fabrics Produced from Acrylic Waste Fiber with the Effects of Incorporated Covered and PBT Elastic Yarns

The objective of this work is to evaluate the thermo-physiological comfort performance properties of the recycledacrylic plain knitted fabrics produced from recycled open end yarn including acrylic waste fiber in comparison with those ofequivalent virgin acrylic counterparts, considering the effects of incorporated covered and PBT elastic yarns. Acrylic fiber ischaracterized by possessing wool-like handle and thermal comfort characteristics, which makes acrylic waste fiber goodcandidate for sweater-like knitted fabric applications worn in cold weather conditions. Covered polyester/lycra and PBTelastic yarns are included into the study to give added value to the recycled fabrics. Comparing the thermo-physiologicalproperties of the recycled and virgin acrylic fabrics, it is observed that in the recycled acrylic fabrics, thermal conductivityand thermal absorptivity are found to be lower, whereas thermal resistance is higher. These thermal values make recycledacrylic fabrics appropriate for cold weather. Regarding to elastic yarn state, the addition of either the covered yarn or the PBTyarn leads to increase in the thermal conductivity, thermal resistance and thermal absorptivity properties and the covered yarntends to affect the thermal parameters more than the PBT yarn. The lowest air permeability and water vapor permeabilityresults are achieved for the fabrics with the covered yarn. KCI Citation Count: 0