Functionalization of hydrophobic nonwoven cotton fabric for oil and water repellency

Highly hydrophobic surfaces exhibit a remarkable feature in the repellency of oil and water. However, the relatively complex preparation process, high costs, and harmful compounds have largely limited their applications. This research aim is to fabricate hydrophobic nonwoven fabrics with low-cost and nontoxic materials. Despite various wettable materials, nonwoven cotton fabric material bearing hydrophobic surfaces has been received significant attention. This is mainly owing to its easy handling, high flexibility, environment friendly, low cost, biodegradability, high efficiency, and easily scalable fabrication. In this study, a simple chemical modification method using hexadecyltrimethoxysilane (HDTMS) with ethanol which is a better method in comparison with other methods since it is an inexpensive, simple method, and offers an easy adjustment of chemical composition required for a surface to show hydrophobic behaviors. The wetting behavior of cotton samples was investigated by water contact angle measurement. The best result comes from 2 ml HDTMS with 40 ml ethanol at 60 °C. The result shows that the treated cotton fabrics exhibited excellent chemical stability and outstanding non-wettability with the WCA of 126 ± 2°. It also shows that standard oil and water repellency, which offers an opportunity to accelerate the large-scale production of hydrophobic textile materials for new industrial applications.