Tailoring the performance of cellulosic textiles by chemical treatment and ionizing radiation: Assessment of physical, mechanical, thermal, crystal and morphological properties
Nasrin Akter, Subrata Chandra Das, Mir Muhammad Fahad, Dipa Islam, Mubarak A. Khan, Saidatulakmar Shamsuddin
Abstract
The present work deals with surface modification and gamma (γ) irradiation treatment to improve the performance of polyester/bitumen emulsion polymer-coated jute woven textiles for geotextile applications. There are different formulations of jute used such as raw (untreated) jute textile fabrics (J0) were modified by HEMA (2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) monomer (J1), raw jute was only coated with the blend of polyester resin/bitumen emulsion (10 %/30 %) (J2), and the HEMA-treated jute was coated with polymer blends (J3). It was revealed that the HEMA treatment increased the tensile breaking force of the polymer-coated jute textiles (J3) by 13.2 %, and moisture properties decreased by 18–24 %. Further, γ-irradiation of 2.5 and 5.0 kGy was exposed to the processed jute fabrics for the yield of improved performance. In this case, a 5.0 kGy dose of γ-irradiation demonstrated maximum improvement compared to their non-irradiated ones, which is 6.1 % and 3.7 % increase of tensile breaking force for J2 (γ) and J3 (γ), respectively, than their non-irradiated jute samples (J2 and J3), whilst the enhancement of the values were 15.4 % and 17.4 %, respectively, compared to the raw jute (J0) sample. The moisture properties were reduced by up to 60 % as a function of γ-irradiation. Further characterization of the jute fabric samples was assessed by FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared) Spectroscopy, XRD (X-ray diffraction), TGA (Thermogravimetric Analysis), and SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy) testing.