Study of Thermal Behaviour of Fabric Coated with Nanocomposite Polyacrylate/Clay

Abstract

In this paper, nanocomposites are synthesised with Tunisian natural clay which has the advantage of being inexpensive. In fact, it is simply a mixture of several sorts of clays (kaolinite, dolomite, calcite, illite, and quartz). This clay has been cleaned, purified, dried, and steered with polyacrylate resin which is actually used in the textile field for several types of other applications, such as comfort, elasticity or impermeability. The samples have been examined by x-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) in order to observe their compositions and ensure the formation of the nanocomposites .The mixture resin/clay is deposited onto 100% cotton fabric and tested by using a PASOD device that measures the necessary voltage to maintain the temperature difference between the inside and the outside of the fabric which is equal to 20°C. The enhancement of the fabric thermal insulation is noticed by calculating the difference in temperature between the inside and the outside of the fabric. The coating which is a nanocomposite PAC/clay has been modelled which proves that it is a Hamiltonian model as the clay percentages are superior to 4% when the clay dispersion and the free-volume are calculated.

Citation

Dhouib, S., Abid, K. and Sakli, F. (2012), "Study of Thermal Behaviour of Fabric Coated with Nanocomposite Polyacrylate/Clay", Research Journal of Textile and Apparel, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 101-110. https://doi.org/10.1108/RJTA-16-03-2012-B010