Engineering of sustainable clothing with improved comfort and thermal properties-A step towards reducing chemical footprint

Abstract Clothing is among the basic needs of human and this has led to tremendous growth in the textile sector. However, huge amounts of hazardous chemicals used in the clothing industry have raised concern in recent years. Due to the increasing awareness in regards to environmental pollution and personal health, particularly in the textile manufacturing, there has been a need for sustainable manufacture of clothing with reduced exposure to the toxic chemical. This research presents a new domain of core-spun yarn (hybrid structure), developed to improve fabric handle, comfort and thermal properties without the application of softening chemicals. Fabrics made up of spun over spun hybrid yarns (SSHY) exhibited remarkable reduction in fabric stiffness. There was approximately 50% reduction in fabric bending rigidity in the case of SSHY fabric in comparison with ring-spun conventional yarn (RSCY) fabric. Notably, there were improvements in the fabric tear strength and other physical parameters.