In this study, cotton textile samples, commonly used in making quilt covers were
subjected to atmospheric pressure dielectric barrier discharge treatment to study their surface wettability and absorbancy. Samples were treated in the discharge using a rotatory mechanism and the effects of plasma treatment were examined by contact angle measurement and weight measurement. Air plasma treatment was successful in incorporating hydrophilic functional groups on the textile surface due to which wettability as well as absorbancy immediately after the treatment were highly improved.
Effects of plasma treatment started to appear only after 20 cycles (9 mins) and got saturated after 24 cycles (10.8 mins) of treatment. The contact angle reduced from 137 ◦ (untreated sample) to a value less than 30 ◦ while absorbancy increased by more than two times as compared to untreated sample. Also, the aging behavior of the plasma treated samples were studied for about a week after plasma treatment. It was observed that the induced oxygen containing groups re-oriented into the bulk of the material during their storage in the environment due to which initial properties of the samples recovered gradually. Our results indicate that low temperature plasma can be successfully applied to modify the properties of textiles and textile industries could utilize this by standardization.