UV LED Curing of Hydrogel-Modified Textiles with High Anti-Fouling Resistance

The hydrogel grafted polyethylene terephthalate (PET) textiles were envisioned to have oil-repelling properties due to the synergistic of combining hydrophilic hydrogel onto PET textiles surfaces. In this work, PAAm hydrogels were grafted i.e. via immersion or dipping methods onto pristine (PPET) and alkaline treated (APET) PET textile surfaces using UV LED light source. The obtained samples were then characterized based on the degree of grafting (DG), Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), surface wettability by contact angle and oil fouling test. APET was found to be more efficient for grafting compared to the PPET due to the surface modification made after the alkaline treatment. APET surface turned to be more hydrophilic than PPET due to the presence of hydroxyl group (-OH) as proven in the FTIR. In addition, the PAAm hydrogel was confirmed to be successfully grafted onto the APET textile via immersion or dipping methods with the optimum DG obtained was at 20 minutes of UV time. This finding has also proven the potential of UV LED as a promising technology to replace the conventional UVA for hydrogel curing. Higher DG was obtained for immersed grafting sample (PAAm-g-APETimm; DG=160 wt%) when compared to the dipped sample (PAAm-g-APETdip; DG=60 wt%) which indicates that higher mass fraction of PAAm could be attached to the surface of PAAm-g-APETimm. Apart from that, PAAm-g-APETimm shows lower water contact angle (WCA) with WCA=60.90° as compared to PAAm-g-APETdip with WCA=83.15° which could be due to higher thickness of hydrophilic layer that resulted in slower rate of oil fouling performance. To summarize, the PAAm hydrogel grafted onto PET textiles were significantly improved and possessed excellent surface towards oil staining performance. By comparing both textile modifications, grafting via dipping was more preferable. Even though the DG obtained was slightly lower, its thin layer of hydrogel grafted on the APET textile surface was sufficient to de-stain oil from the textile surface at a faster rate (~0.60-0.70 seconds). To some extent; the hydrogel modified textiles via UV LED curing has bright vision in the near future as promising tools for oil/water separation.