ABSTRACT
Modern consumers of textiles are conscious about sustainability of the garments they are wearing. Drying process is an energy-intensive process that has an impact on sustainability. There is no specific standard test method available to measure the dry ability of a fabric. Some of the test methods cited in the literature to measure the quick dry ability use a technique where a small quantity of water is placed on a dry fabric sample and the time taken for the water to evaporate is measured. These methods are not suitable for measuring the dry ability of a washed fabric as in these test methods the dry ability depends solely on the wicking property of that fabric. In the work presented here, we are proposing a new test method to measure the real dry ability of textile fabrics. When examined by this proposed method, it was found that some of the commercially available so-called quick-drying polyester fabrics showed poor dry ability. The surface of the examined fabrics was characterized by measuring contact angle and also by attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), which reveals the reasons behind their poor dry ability. This proposed method could be used in industry to measure the quick dry ability of various fabrics.
Acknowledgment
Stewart Collie (AgResearch) helped in the improvement of the manuscript.