Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 2

The development of self cleaning textile fabrics, used to manufacture garments, outerwears, upholstery (including furniture) and casual fabrics, is proposed in order to move toward the ideal situation where minimal washings, care and repairs are needed for the textile fabrics. Such attributes confered to garments and fabrics are relevant to ecodesign, while the self-cleaning concept leads eventually to dramatic extension of the lifetime, reduction of washings/care, soap consumption and energy required for washings. For consumers and corporate buyers, it would mean substantial savings. For the society, minimal cleaning/care represents reduction of energy costs, a better environment and reduced water pollution. It is well known that repeated washings accelerate the ageing or deterioration of garments and fabrics. The conventional wash and dry process is the cause for different mechanical, physical and chemical damages to fabrics and clothings. Dry cleaning is much less harsh; however, it requires polluting and volatile chemicals such as perchloroethylene and is an important source of harmful volatile organic compounds (VOC). Damage induced by repeated washings may include loss in tensile strength, tear resistance, dimensional stability and color change to name a few. Different strategies will be pursued to attain the self cleaning property: we will develop new functional chemistries based on photocatalytic-oxydation for the textile finishing formulations and also we will engineer original textile fabric surface designs to mimic the lotus effect.