Abstract:

Silicone softeners make fabric not only softer, brighterd slippery but also more elastic in order to produce desirable handle. In this paper, the affect of silicone softeners on some mechanical and functional properties of knitted regenerated (viscose, modal, Viloft®, micromodal, lyocell and bamboo) fabrics were assessed. For this purpose, commercially used silicone softeners with three different particle sizes (macro, semi-macro, micro) were applied on these fabrics by a continuous methodin identical conditions. The impact of using different softeners on the weight, thickness, pilling resistance, wet and dry rubbing fastness, total colour change and air permeability of these fabrics were investigated. Results revealed that the highest colour efficiency is obtained from lyocell fabrics. Silicone softener application increased the pilling performance of regenerated cellulose fabrics but had no affect on the wet and dry rubbing color fastness. It was found that the application of softeners has a significant affect on air permeability with respect to untreated fabrics.