Penetration of plasma effects into textile structures

The penetration of plasma into textile materials turns out to be a crucial point for plasma modification of fabrics. Throughout the process where plasma treatment can be applied approximately 1-100 mbar is evaluated to be the optimum. This is due to the correlation between characteristic geometrical distances in fabrics and the mean free path of modifying particles in the gas phase as well as the energy transfer from activated plasma particles to surrounding inactive gas particles and to surface sites of textile fibres. Theoretical calculations and experimental results for the hydrophilisation of fabrics prove this behaviour. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.