Nanotechnology
• Nanotechnology is defined as the study of matters, function, and phenomena
which have at least one or all dimensions <100 nm. Nanotechnology is an
advanced technology, which will significantly affect the advancement of the
entire textile world, as well as the products, types of its application.
Nanotechnology will play a vital role in the development of the textile industry
cleaner, energy-saving and efficient industry.
• With the help of nanotechnology multifunctional textile can be developed such
as antibacterial, protection against mold, water repellent products, which can be
used in camouflage and sensors, etc.
• Nanofibers are the fibers whose diameter is <100 nm are called nanofibers.
Nanofibers are developed through different techniques. The methods used for
the development of nanofibers are self-assembly, bicomponent extrusion, phase
separation, melt blowing, template synthesis, centrifugal spinning, drawing and
electrospinning
Properties of Nanofibers
• Nanofibers have unique chemical and physical properties, heat, and
electrical conductivity, strength, elongation. Many other chemicals
and properties may be different from the same materials in bulk size.
Nanofibers have high surface to volume ratio, low density, improve
mechanical properties, high surface energy
Application of Nanofibers
• Due to unique properties, area of application of nanofibers are
widespread. It can used in filtration of air, water, and oil separation, in
energy conservation used in batteries, medical textiles, self-cleaning
textiles, electronics field, smart textiles, sports tech, etc.
Spinning nano fibers
• Nano fibers are developed by using electrospinning. In this technique
two metallic plates are electrically charged with opposite charges
using a high voltage source. Then solution of a polymer is injected
from an electrically charged plate. At the same time the oppositely
charged plate collects the fibers due to attraction among opposite
charges. As the potential difference between two plates is very high,
the developed fibers are of nano size.
Adv and disadv of electrospinning
The advantage of using electrospinning is that the developed nanofibers
have a
very high surface area. Therefore, they can be used for absorption,
separation, filtration,
and drug delivery in the form of a nano web/sheet. Further, multiple
polymers can also be mixed together to make multifunctional nano fibers.
The disadvantages of this technique are that the fibers developed with this
method have poor mechanical properties and the production speed is very
slow. Due to slow production speed, it is difficult to make nano fibers in
bulk quantities. The scientists are working on different possibilities to
increase the production speed of this process.
The web/membrane made from electrospinning is used by sandwiching
between multilayer structures due to its mechanical properties.
Uses of Nano fibers
These particles may perform several functions, e.g., antimicrobial, self
cleaning, anti-wetting, etc.
The advantage of using the nanoparticles is that the surface properties
of the substrate
are not affected much.
Carbon Fiber and CNTS
• Carbon materials find enormous applications in geotextiles particularly
where high strength and temperature tolerance are required because of
their extraordinary thermal, electrical, and mechanical properties. Different
people used different allotropes of carbon like carbon black, carbon fibers,
graphene, and carbon nanotubes for improving the strength and ductility
of geotextiles. It was found that the addition of such materials not only
improves the mechanical properties of geotextile but also gives additional
benefits like high-temperature bearing capacity because of high
temperature resistant nature of carbon materials. Another problem is the
effect of weathering conditions which play a significant role in the
deteriorating strength of geotextiles. The use of stabilized carbon-based
materials helps in preventing the weathering effect and increases life span
of materials to be used in geotextiles.
Carbon Fiber and CNTS
• Since carbon fibers are devoid of porosity and have a very limited
surface area so they are not used directly for filtration purposes.
However, geotextiles used for drainage purposes require a high
strength side by side adsorption characteristics. Hence carbon fiber
is used as a backing material in filtration cloth for getting mechanical
stability and durability.
Carbon Fiber and CNTS
• However, another allotrope (same compound different physical properties such
as graphite, diamond are allotropes of C) of carbon, i.e., activated carbon is more
popularly used in air and water filtration purposes.
• Around 80% of produced activated carbon worldwide is used in water filtration
while 20% is used in air filtration, sound absorption, and odor adsorption along
with other applications. Activated carbon is widely characterized for high surface
area, porosity, and presence of different functional groups.
• Nowadays activated carbon prepared in different forms like activated carbon
powered, activated carbon fibers, activated carbon cloth, activated carbon webs
and the trend is shifting toward the development of nanofibrous membranes by
using carbon materials. There are different precursor materials like
Polyacrylonitrile, cellulosic materials, and different textile waste materials are
being employed for getting required surface area and porosity.
CNTs
• A carbon nanotube (CNT) is a tube made of carbon with diameters typically
measured in nanometers.
• Single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are one of the allotropes of carbon,
intermediate between fullerene cages and flat graphene, with diameters in the
range of a nanometre. Although not made this way, single-wall carbon nanotubes
can be idealized as cutouts from a two-dimensional hexagonal lattice of carbon
atoms rolled up along one of the Bravais lattice vectors of the hexagonal lattice to
form a hollow cylinder. In this construction, periodic boundary conditions are
imposed over the length of this roll-up vector to yield a helical lattice of
seamlessly bonded carbon atoms on the cylinder surface.
• Multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) consisting of nested single-wall carbon
[1] weakly bound together by van der Waals interactions in a tree ring
nanotubes
like structure. If not identical, these tubes are very similar to Oberlin, Endo, and
Koyama's long straight and parallel carbon layers cylindrically arranged around a
hollow tube.[2] Multi-wall carbon nanotubes are also sometimes used to refer to
double- and triple-wall carbon nanotubes.
Nanocomposite
• Nanocomposite is a multiphase solid material where one of the phases has one, two or three
dimensions of less than 100 nanometers (nm) or structures having nano-scale repeat distances
between the different phasesl that make up the material.
• The idea behind Nanocomposite is to use building blocks with dimensions in nanometre range to
design and create new materials with unprecedented flexibility and improvement in their physical
properties.
• In the broadest sense this definition can include porous media, colloids, gels and copolymers, but
is more usually taken to mean the solid combination of a bulk matrix and nano-dimensional
phase(s) differing in properties due to dissimilarities in structure and chemistry. The mechanical,
electrical, thermal, optical, electrochemical, catalytic properties of the nanocomposite will differ
markedly from that of the component materials.
Size limits for these effects have been proposed:
• <5 nm for catalytic activity
• <20 nm for making a hard magnetic material soft
• <50 nm for refractive index changes
• <100 nm for achieving superparamagnetism, mechanical strengthening or restricting
matrix dislocation movement
• Nanocomposites are found in nature, for example in the structure of
the abalone shell and bone.
• The use of nanoparticle-rich materials long predates the understanding of
the physical and chemical nature of these materials. Jose-Yacaman et
al.[2] investigated the origin of the depth of colour and the resistance to
acids and bio-corrosion of Maya blue paint, attributing it to a
nanoparticle mechanism. From the mid-1950s nanoscale organo-clays
have been used to control flow of polymer solutions (e.g. as paint
viscosifiers) or the constitution of gels (e.g. as a thickening substance in
cosmetics, keeping the preparations in homogeneous form). By the 1970s
polymer/clay composites were the topic of textbooks,[3][4] although the
term "nanocomposites" was not in common use.
• In mechanical terms, nanocomposites differ from
conventional composite materials due to the exceptionally high
surface to volume ratio of the reinforcing phase and/or its
exceptionally high aspect ratio. The reinforcing material can be made
up of particles (e.g. minerals), sheets (e.g. exfoliated clay stacks) or
fibres (e.g. carbon nanotubes or electrospun fibres)
