Improvement in UV-Protection Property of Cotton Fabric and Fastness of Finishing Performance

Three types of hydrosol including TiO2 hydrosol, ZnO hydrosoland TiO2/ZnO compound hydrosol prepared at room temperature by sol-gel technology were applied to cotton fabric by pad-cure-dry finishing process in order to improve UV-protection property. The SEM image showed that all the three types of sol formed a thin layer film on the cotton fiber. The results of UV-protection property tests showed that with the TiO2 sol and TiO2/ZnO compound sol, the cotton fabric have better UV-protection property, but the cotton fabric finished by ZnO sol didnt get little UV protection property. The fastness of UV-protection performance by soaping was also researched in this paper. The test results justified that the soaping process after finishing was a very useful and helpful process to improve the UV-protection property. The cotton fabric finished by ZnO sol after 50 times soaping got better UV-protection property than that without soaping. The UV-protection property of cotton fabric finished by TiO2/ZnO compound sol was also improved dramatically similarly after 50 times soaping. The fabric finished by TiO2 sol got best UV-protection property in the three types of fabric without soaping and the UV-protection of it after 30 times soaping raised to peak value but decreased with longer soaping times.