Chitin coated cellulosic textiles as natural barrier materials

The two most abundant hiopolymers chitin and cellulose have unique properties suitable for designing re- newable materials. Cellulose already plays a significant role in the prodn. of daily materials such as textile fibers while chitin still remains widely less utilized. In this work, new cellulose/chitin composite materials were prepd. to study the advantages of a chitin coat on the properties of cellulose-based tex- tiles. Textiles produced from TENCEL, Lenzing Viscose, Lenzing Modal and cotton fibers were coated by regenerating chitin from a mixt. of an ionic liq. (l-butyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate) and a hio- sourced co-solvent (I³-valerolactone). The coat was applied only on one side of the textiles. Structural and morphol. anal. demonstrated that a uniform and non-modified chitin film of 10 I¼m was successfully coated on all type of textiles without damaging their network. The degree of acetylation of the used chitin and the fabricated chitin coating detd. by elemental anal. was 95.8% and 91.9%, resp. The in- fluence of the chitin coat on the textiles properties was characterized by wetting, and gas/water permeability comparative studies of the conventional and coated textiles. The results demonstrated that the presence of chitin decreased the water wettability of the textiles solely on the coated site. Moreover, the chitin layer acted as a promising water and oxygen barrier independently of the nature of the textiles.