Development of functional knitted fabrics using yarn composed of polypyrrole coated cotton fibers

This study aimed at developing a knitted fabric using conductive staple spun yarn composed of polypyrrole coated cotton fibers and characterizing its thermal, optical and electrical properties, hydrophobic behavior as well as mechanical stiffness as a factor of weight percentage in fabrics. FTIR spectra, TGA and SEM verify that the polypyrrole ((PPy) has been successfully coated on cotton fibres before and after washing. The results showed that the fabrics containing polypyrrole had lower transmission and reflection percentage as compared with fabric without polypyrrole for wavelengths ranging from 200 to 20000 nm. At the investigated weight percentages, the thermal properties, hydrophobicity and electrical conductivity were found to be increased significantly with increasing amount of polypyrrole coated cotton fibers in the fabric. The thermal conductivity of fabrics with PPy coated fibers were found to be increased around 30-40%. The higher value of electrical conductivity (0.73 mu S cm(-1)) was obtained in course direction and static water contact angle of 138 degrees for fabric with higher polypyrrole content. The stiffness of the fabrics with PPy was found to increase about 10-20% in both wale wise and course wise directions with increase of polypyrrole coated cotton fibers in fabrics.