Production and characterization of various capsules which are gained functional properties to textile material

Textile industry is a business segment with high employment capacity that ensure significant export profit to our country. However recently, low price goods produced with cheap labor, especially in countries of Far East, have made it difficult to compete with these countries. Inevitably, Turkish textile industry's share in the world market has decreased. This situation led the companies to design and manufacture new products with high added value. Thus, the textiles has such functional properties as flame retardant, anti-bacterial, anti-static, high strength, dirt and water repellent have attracted more attention. Advanced finishing applications like encapsulating, coating, laminating, sol-gel and plasma have gained importance in order to develop this kind of technical products. Nevertheless Turkey could not behave agile in the manufacture of these innovative products and failed in market debut, so remained dependent to foreign countries. It is not sufficient only to give textiles the desired features. The features expected to be permanent as well. Encapsulation is an essential technique that comes to mind when it is required to protect the functional substances susceptible to environmental influences. With the usage of encapsulation technology in textile finishing, it is possible of materials non-durable against washing to sustain their characteristics. The purpose of this study is obtaining different capsules with the properties of antioxidant, antibacterial, insect repellent and flame retardant and producing long lasting functional textiles with the use of these capsules in finishing processes. Reducing economic dependence of Turkish textile industry with the commercialization of these products is among the long-term goals. Functional substances are encapsulating using ethyl cellulose, cyclodextrin and chitosan. The products are characterized by FT-IR (Fouier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy), particle size analysis, X-ray diffractometer, SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope), DSC (Differential Scanning Calorimeter) and TGA (Termo Gravimetric Analysis). The capsules are applied to the cotton fabric separately. The resistance against washing and rubbing-of the fabrics containing capsules are examined by antioxidant, antimicrobial, insect repellant and flame retardant activity tests and scanning electron microscopy.