Plasma-assisted coating for highly hydrophobic textile surfaces

In textile finishing, silicone-based treatments are widely used to impart water repellence to fabrics [1]. However, wet processes use large amount of water and they are considered poorly sustainable. Many efforts are made in the textile community to develop ecological alternatives; in this sense, low-temperature-plasma has shown tremendous potential in textile finishing. Hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDSO) is a safe organosilicon monomer and it has been extensively employed for plasma polymer deposition in rather different fields [2]. In this work, a comprehensive study on HMDSO coating of six different fabrics by means of an under-vacuum plasma process have been presented.