The Preparation Of TiO₂ Sol And The Study Of The Application Of The Sol On Cotton Textile

The best starting materials for sol-gel preparations are the class of materials known as metal alkoxides. They have the following general formula: M (OR) x, where M is the metal, R is an alkyl group, and x is the valence state of the metal. The metal alkoxides are rapidly hydrolyzed to the corresponding hydroxide or oxide through a solution-sol-gel evolvement. At present the sol-gel technology is largely used for kinds of useful materials such as nanometer materials, anti-reflecting coating, thin film, ceramic fiber, organic-inorganic layers and so on. However there is less study of introducing the sol-gel process into the textile finishing. In this paper, the TiO2 sol was prepared based on the principle of the sol-gel technology and also was used on textile combined with the strongpoint of the sol-gel process and the feature of the textile. The results showed that the textiles treated by the TiO2 sol had the good multi-functional abilities such as shielding ultraviolet, color fixing and water repellency.Some studies of the TiO2 sol in organic solvent were reported in some public journal. For decreasing the quantity of the organic solvent and saving the environment, this paper is focused on the preparation of stable TiO2 sol by using titanium alkoxide as precursor and water as solvent while adding acetic acid for the purpose of moderating the rate of hydrolysis. The right formula of the TiO2 sol was found through discussing the influence of acetic acid and hydrochloric acid. Then in different factors such as temperature, pH value had been studied the experiments of the influences upon the time of TiO2 sol into gelation.On the surface of the textiles treated with the sol-gel process may form a thin sporous oxide film. The following experiment results are obtained after applying the TiO2 sol film for the coating of cotton textile:Generally the transparent rate of ultraviolet radiation of the cotton textile untreated by TiO2 sol is 35.2% at 297nm.However the cotton textile which istreated with 0.37mol/l TiO2 sol shows a fairly wide good performance of shielding ultraviolet radiation. Its transparent rate of ultraviolet radiation only reaches 0.8% at 297nm. The cotton textile which is treated with TiO2 sol film also shows a good performance of water-resistance. Its osmotic pressure reached 19.7 centimeter water column.The fabrics dyed with direct dye got good color fastness after the sol-gel treatment by the mixed sol of Ti/Si=l:l~l:5(mol ratio), especially in the area of white staining. In this paper the process of textile finishing by sol-gel technology was particularly discussed. As the result showed that the temperature and time of curing process were the main factors.