Obtaining water repellent textile surfaces with olivetol based sol-gel coatings and investigation of their morphological properties

The textile industry, which has rapidly grown worldwide and gained increasing strategic importance, has been one of the fundamental sectors throughout human history and is expected to maintain its significance in the future. In this industry, the demand for multifunctional textile structures has continuously increased, and developing innovative solutions that integrate multiple properties simultaneously has become a key objective. Providing functionalities such as flame retardancy, antibacterial activity, stain resistance, and wrinkle resistance within a single textile structure is considered essential. In this study, textile fabrics were coated with olivetol-based sol-gel structures possessing molecular hydrophobicity, aiming to achieve water- and oil-repellent as well as thermally enhanced textile surfaces. Fabrics such as suprem, interlock, rib, and lacoste, being composed of raw cotton, contain a high density of hydroxyl groups, which makes them highly hydrophilic. Therefore, coatings containing various concentrations of olivetol units were applied to these fabrics in order to reduce their hydrophilic character.The study not only focused on the development of hydrophobic and oleophobic surfaces but also on improving the thermal stability of the fabrics through sol-gel coating. Furthermore, the ratio of hydrophobic olivetol-based molecular units in the coating was varied to investigate the correlation between olivetol content and key fabric properties.The olivetol-based surface coatings obtained were structurally analyzed using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray Diffraction (XRD). The coated textile structures included interlock, rib, lacoste, and suprem fabric types. The surface morphology and coating thickness were examined in detail using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), and optical microscopy. The thermal properties of the coated fabrics were evaluated using Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), Differential Thermal Analysis (DTA), and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). Water repellency was assessed by contact angle measurements, and the influence of olivetol concentration and coating thickness on surface hydrophobicity was thoroughly analyzed.