L´application des traitments Corona dans l´impression textile

The effect of Corona treatment on the surface of polymeric materials, specially animal and vegetable fibres has been presented in several publications. The great advantage of this technique is the possibility to work continuously at atmospheric pressure. In the present work, changes on the surface of a pigmentary printing paste are obtained by Corona treatment carried out before thermalfixation. The treatment provokes the oxidation on the surface and the reticulation by polycondensation is highly facilitated. The changes on the surface were measured by spectroscopy XPS (X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy) and by SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy) and FM (Atomic Force Microscopy) microscopic techniques. The printed fabric fastness to rubbing has been also evaluated and an improvement was obtained. This fact can be explained by means of several possible changes on the surface: 1) the raise on the concentration of –COOH and –OH groups of the binder, which includes a more intense reticulation on the surface; 2) a superficial “cleaning” of the printing paste, by diminution of roughness and 3) the combination of the two previous modifications