Functional finishing of polyamide fabrics using ZnO–PMMA nanocomposites

Polymer nanocomposites offer possibility of developing a new class of nanofinishing materials for textiles with their own manifold of structure property relationship. Approaches to modify the polymer nanocomposites by various inorganic substances can lead to a huge number of additional functionalities which are increasingly demanded by the textile industries. In the present work, zinc oxide nanoparticles were prepared by wet chemical method and ZnO–PMMA nanocomposites were prepared by dispersing the ZnO nanoparticles in solution of poly(methylmethacrylate) (PMMA) and applied on polyamide fabrics by padding. The aims are to impart superhydrophobicity and UV protection function to the polyamide textile surface and the functional properties of coated fabrics were studied. The nanofinished polyamide fabrics showed superhydrophobicity of about 163°. The results also showed that the impregnation of fabrics with ZnO–PMMA nanofinishings also enhanced the protection of polyamide fabrics against UV radiation.