Eco-friendly sizing technology of cotton yarns with He/O2 atmospheric pressure plasma treatment and green sizing recipes

In order to avoid using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), an eco-friendly sizing technology with atmospheric pressure plasma treatment and green sizing recipes has been developed and evaluated with respect to sizing properties and desizing efficiency. The results show that the eco-friendly sizing technology can endow cotton yarn with better sizing properties, including significantly improved size-pick-up, breaking strength, breaking elongation, abrasion resistance and substantially reduced yarn hair, than the traditional sizing technology with the use of PVA. Compared with a typical traditional sizing technology using PVA and modified starch, the optimized eco-friendly sizing technology can impart the yarn an increase of 19.4%, 5.3%, 3.4% and 169.2% for the size-pick-up, breaking strength, breaking elongation and the abrasion resistance time, respectively, and a reduction of 59.3% for the yarn hairiness index value at level 1. The sizing properties can be obviously improved by the atmospheric pressure plasma treatment, which can roughen the fiber surface, etch away the hydrophobic cuticle layer and introduce polar groups. The glycerol in the green sizing recipes can effectively reduce the yarn hairiness and increase size-pick-up and abrasion resistance. The eco-friendly sizing technology has no observable negative influence on desizing of cotton fabrics. Furthermore, a better water diffusion in the fabric can be achieved because of the improved hydrophilicity by using the plasma treatment.