An Empirical Study of Plasma Treatment Technology on Pilling Tendency of Wool Knitted Fabrics

This project adopts plasma technology to reduce the pilling of wool knitwear by studying its fundamental modifications on morphological, physical and mechanical properties of wool fibre, yarn and fabrics, as well as investigating the relationships of plasma treatment parameters and pilling resistance of wool fabrics. With the increasing demand of light-weight wool knitwear, pilling problem becomes increasingly important to both textile industry and consumers. Many efforts have been made to reduce wool fabric pilling, whereas these solutions act against fabric bulkiness, softness and appealing handle. Plasma species as the “fourth state” of matters can penetrate a depth of 1000 Å of material surface, so it can be used as an effective method to modify the surface property of wool without changing the bulk property. Also plasma treatment is waterless and eco-friendly. It is expected that this study will facilitate the discovery of an innovative and practical way to reduce the pilling of wool knitwear by plasma technology.