Enhancing the Wettability of Fibre Surface: A Comparative Experimental Study of Different Surface Activation Principles on Single Polyamide Fibre

In this study, we have compared three different principles of surface activation with regard to their effects on the properties of single polyamide fibres. The techniques used include the complexation-mediated surface treatment using CaCl2/EtOH/H2O solution (CEW), the atmospheric pressure plasma treatment with air (APPA) and grafting polymerisation process with 2- hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA). The CEW modification, the plasma treatment and the grafting process induced a decrease in advancing contact angle and thus led to an improved wettability of the polyamide fibre. While for the CEW treatment, the decrease was solely due to a change in topography such as increased surface roughness leading to increased capillary effect, for the APPA and grafting technique the decrease was attributed to a combination of increased surface roughness and increased amount of oxygen or nitrogen-containing groups as detected by XPS. In addition, the fibre fineness decreased in the case of CEW treatment due to a dissolution of polyamide segments during the modification, while it increased in the grafting process due to an additional grafted layer. However, an increase in wetted length was observed for most samples, which was attributed to the increased waviness of the fibres. All treatments induced a decrease in fibre tensile strength that decreased with increasing treatment intensity.