Natural and regenerated fiber applications in sustainable terry fabric production

Environmental sustainability has become an indispensable principle in every sector. Especially in the fashion and textile industries, regenerated textile fibers are crucial for sustainability and a circular economy. The production of regenerated fibers typically involves dissolving low-value resources to form polymer solutions and then processing these solutions to produce regenerated fibers. This study includes the comparison and statistical analysis of various sustainable regenerated fiber applications used in woven terry cloths with natural fiber terry cloths in terms of physical and mechanical properties. Soaking time, vertical capillary wetting, drying speed, water evaporation rate, surface absorbency and tensile strength tests were applied to 60/40% tencel, modal, cellulose acetate, bamboo and 56/44% linen blended cotton woven terry fabrics and statistically analyzed and compared with 100% organic cotton and 100% cotton woven terry fabrics. With the test results, it has been observed that the vertical capillary wetting of tencel/cotton blended fabrics is higher than other fabrics, their absorbency is higher and more comfortable compared to cotton fabrics, and they can contribute to an ecologically sustainable and circular economy. In terms of breaking strength, when cotton/modal blended fabrics were compared with cotton fabrics, it was found that besides sufficient mechanical properties, good physical properties such as surface absorbency, water evaporation rate, drying speed were found to be statistically significant. This study shows that although regenerated fibers add value to the fashion and textile industries in terms of waste reduction and recovery, further investigation of the environmental impacts of the production, use and disposal of regenerated fibers is required to move towards a truly sustainable future.