Vol. 10, Special Issue 1 (2021)

Author(s):
Sakeena Naikwadi and Sannapapamma KJ

Abstract:
With the growing demand for more com¬fortable, healthier and environmentally friendly products, efforts in research and development activities in the textile in¬dustry have focused on the utilisation of renewable and biodegradable resources as well as environmentally sound manu-facturing processes in textiles. In this re¬spect, a new kind of regenerated fibres which are an alternative to conventional ones such as tencel, modal, bamboo are gaining significant importance among the fashion group due to their excellent fabric properties ultimately used in apparel and home textile. The recent development in the regenerated fibre is the excel manufactured from Birla Cellulose of the Aditya Birla group with improved fibre properties. The 2/40s count of excel and cotton yarns were used to develop plain woven fabric using power loom for comparative study to distinguish properties at every stages of wet processing. The plain woven excel and cotton fabrics were scoured and bleached and assessed for mechanical properties. It is revealed from the study that, the scoured excel and combined scoured and bleached cotton fabrics were improved the mechanical properties. Among the pure fabrics (excel and cotton), the excel fabric was found to be significantly greater in mechanical properties than the cotton fabric and the excel fabric became softer, stronger and flexible than cotton fabric. Hence, the excel fabric can be used for apparel purpose, babies clothing and women garments to add better drape and softness to the fabrics.