Surface Free Energy of Textile

Abstract

Phenomena on the Interface in textile wet finishing processes are described: wetting, penetration and adsorption. These phenomena occur in contact of two surfaces - liquid (bath) and solid (textile) whose surface properties determine the intensity of the solidliquid interaction. These interactions are the result of the textile surface free energy and the treatment bath applied to the textile surface. The surface free energy of a material (solid) is the sum of energy contributions required by different surface interactions, nonpolar Lifshitz van der Waals and polar acid-basic interactions. The commonly used method for determining the surface free energy by direct measuring the contact angle (wetting angle) contains considerable restrictions when it comes to textile, thus a heterogeneous, porous and mostly hydrophilic surface. The method of determining contact angle is used on very smooth, homogeneous, mostly hydrophobic surface, such as polymer foils. The problem of determining surface free energy on heterogeneous, porous materials, which have a poorly defined geometry, such as powder materials, textile, ceramics and the like, was solved by Chibowski, starting from Washbum equation which applies to the measurement of the capillarity of porous materials. This paper describes an approach to the determination of surface free energy and corresponding energy components on the textile. It is based on the experiments of wetting and penetration of several solvents, polar and non-polar ones, on textile samples using the equipment made by Chibowski and Holysz.