Introducing Durable and Uniform Surface Coatings on Garments with Complex Contours Using Low Pressure Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD)

Textile industry is responsible for about 20% of the global clean water pollution due to the traditional dyeing and finishing processes. After many years of research and development, water free and effluent free surface functionalization of garments is now possible with our patented low pressure PECVD technology. This specific PECVD system consists of a 2000-liter vacuum chamber, which accommodates about 100 medium size t-shirts at once, a chemical dosing system, two parallel radio frequency (RF) electrodes and a dynamic vacuum system. The chemical inlets, chemical guiding system and dynamic vacuum outlets were placed in a manner to assure uniform distribution of activated chemicals within the plasm chamber to functionalize inner and outer surfaces of garments with complex and nonuniform contours. Two main energy sources were used to bring the selected chemistries into the plasma form. First chemicals were introduced into the plasma chamber via a preheating chamber to boost the kinetic energy. Then RF waves were used to bring the preheated chemicals to the plasma stage. Surface functionalizing chemicals were continuously pumped into the change with the flowrates of 0.1 to 1 g/min while maintaining the pressure of the chamber in between 0.1 to 1 mbar. Garments were hanged within the chamber while keeping at least 2 cm gaps among each other.<br/>Surface functionalization was done at two stages. At first, substrates (garments) were activated with Argon plasma for about 5 to 10 minutes. Then the surface functionalization was done for about 20 to 30 minutes with selected chemistries. Surface functionalizing chemicals were carefully selected, where each molecule has two regions, a region that easily activates with the RF source to create plasms and a region that provides the required end functionality to the fabric surface. The selected chemistries were anchoring to the substrates with covalent bonds while making crosslinked network with adjacent chemisorbed molecules. Different functionalities such as super hydrophobic, oleophobic, hydrophilic, bacteriostatic were introduced on to inner and outer surfaces of the garments in uniform and substrate agnostic manner with the above PECVD system. Process parameters were tuned to assure the performance and wash durability of the surface functionalized garments while maintaining aesthetic intact.