Plasma-Corona-Processed Nanostructured Coating for Thermoregulative Textiles

A rapid increase in the atmospheric temperature has been reported in recent years worldwide. The lack of proper aid to protect from exposure to the sun during working hours has raised the number of sunburn cases among workers. It is important to promote productive workplaces without compromising safety and health concerns. In the present work, we report the low-temperature plasma (LTP)-assisted tailoring of the surface properties of fabrics to reflect IR radiation from the sun. The LTP technique can be adapted for thermally sensitive materials such as fabrics and textiles due to its lower working temperature range of 30 °C. We have modified various substrates such as commercially available fabric, regular, and boron nitride-incorporated electrospun PET surfaces with tetraethoxy orthosilicate (TEOS) plasma. TEOS plasma treatment can deposit a reactive plasma-polymerized silane nanolayer on the surface of these substrates. The plasma-processed silane nanolayer was systematically characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Keyence 3D-microscopic imaging, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). From the SEM and TEM data, the size of the nanoparticles was observed in the range 100–200 nm. The thermal regulation coating thickness was examined with a Keyence 3D imaging technique. The IR reflection potential of the surface was analyzed by using an FLIR thermal imaging system. The data revealed that the plasma-modeled nanosurface shows higher reflective potential toward IR rays, and it seems to be cooler than the unprocessed surface by approximately 15 °C. The stability and efficiency of the plasma-modified electrospun nanolayer in water were satisfactorily examined with SEM and IR imaging. Taken together, these results suggest the excellent potential of plasma processing to develop IR reflective coatings.