The effect of dielectric barrier discharge plasma treatment on the air drag force of polyacrylonitrile, polyethylene, polypropylene and polyethylene terephthalate yarns

In this paper, atmospheric pressure dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma was used to treat four kinds of chemical fiber yarns, namely polyacrylonitrile (PAN), polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET), for which the air drag force, moisture regain and yarn diameter were measured. Compared with untreated samples, the air drags of treated PAN, PE, PP and PET yarns increased maximally by 10.7%, 43.0%, 40.0% and 18.9%, respectively, in the present experiments. A two-way analysis of variance and correlation analysis were performed to study the effect of plasma treatment on air drag and other properties of these four chemical fiber yarns. The combination of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis and the determination of the DBD plasma component can further enhance the understanding of the difference between DBD plasma treatment processes among these four chemical fiber yarns. This study provided the experimental basis to improve the air-jet weaving efficiency of chemical fiber fabrics.