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November 20th, 2007

Self cleaning textile - an overview

Abstract:
Water and soil repellency has been one of the major targets for fiber and textile scientists and manufacturers for centuries. Combinations of new materials for fiber production with a variety of surface treatments have been developed to reach the condition of limited wettability.

Nature has already developed an elegant approach that combines chemistry and physics to create super repellant surfaces as well as self cleaning surfaces. Lotus leaves is the best example of self cleaning surfaces. The concept of self cleaning textiles is based on the lotus plant whose leaves are well-known for their ability to self-clean by repelling water and dirt. More recently, botany and nanotechnology have united to explore not only the beauty and cleanliness of the leaf, but also its lack of contamination and bacteria, despite its dwelling in dirty ponds.

Basically, the lotus leaf has two levels of structure affecting this behavior micro-scale bumps and nano-scale hair-like structures coupled with the leafs waxy chemical composition. On the basis of lotus leaf concept scientist developed a new concept Self cleaning textile the textile surface which can be cleaned itself without using any laundering action.

Source:
fibre2fashion.com

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