High Functional Soy Protein / Polyester Fabric Preparation

Poly (ethylene terephthalate) (PET) has been widely used for textile fibers due to its excellent physical and mechanical properties such as high strength, durability, abrasion resistance, acid-proof alkaline, wrinkle resistance and recovery. However, his poor moisture regain more or less spoils the clothing cosiness. The performance of PTE can not be improved by grafting functional compounds, because PET has few reactable groups. In this study, sugar ester (SE) was encased into surface layer of PET fiber, which gave reactive groups to PET. Then soybean proteins could be grafted on the surface of PET fiber. Grafting process, clothing properties of fabric and dyeing performance were studied. Effect of encasing and grafting were studied by SEM and FT-IR. The optimum grafting process was determined by single factor experiment method. The relationship between grafting rate and clothing properties was discussed, and the clothing properties included moisture regain, hydrophilicity, air permeation, water vapor permeability, whiteness, stiffness and wrinkle resistance. Fabrics were dyed by reactive dyes and disperse dyes and dyeability was discussed. The most important findings could be as follows:(1) SE was encased into surface layer of PET fiber, and there are lots of reactive hydroxyl groups on the surface of PET. After encasing, the air permeation had no change, and the stiffness increased, and the angle of elastic recovery firstly increased and then decreased. When the encasing rate was 1.45%, there will be lots of reactive hydroxyl groups on the surface layer of PET, and the clothing properties changed unobviously. So we chose encasing rate of 1.45% as the fabric for grafting soybean protein. And the proper encasing process was, the concentration of SE of 1%, temperature of 120℃, the time of 60min.(2)The soybean protein was grafted on the surface of encase PET with sugar ester glycidyl ether (SEGE) as crosslinking agent. The optimum grafting process was determined by single factor experiment method. And the proper grafting process was, bath ratio of 1:50, the concentration of crosslinking agent of 4.1g/L, time of 30 min, temperature of 100℃, and the grafting rate will increase according to the increase of the concentration of soybean protein.(3) The moisture regain and hydrophilicity were improved markedly after grafting with protein. The moisture regain was up to 1.05% when the grafting ratio was 6.86%. The negative effect on whiteness and air permeation can be neglected. The stiffness increased a little and the angle of elastic recovery decreased a little, which didn't have effect on clothing properties.(4) Polyester after grafting soybean protein dyed by reactive dyes and the dyeing effect was obviously, but the levelness was not good. Polyester dyed by disperse dyes at the same time encased with SE, and after dyeing and encasing, the soybean protein was grafted onto the fabric. The dyeing depth did not change after grafting soybean protein and the levelness was good.