Tailoring the performance of cellulosic textiles by chemical treatment and ionizing radiation: Assessment of physical, mechanical, thermal, crystal and morphological properties

The present work deals with surface modification and gamma (γ) irradiation treatment to improve the performance of polyester/bitumen emulsion polymer-coated jute woven textiles for geotextile applications. There are different formulations of jute used such as raw (untreated) jute textile fabrics (J0) were modified by HEMA (2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) monomer (J1), raw jute was only coated with the blend of polyester resin/bitumen emulsion (10 %/30 %) (J2), and the HEMA-treated jute was coated with polymer blends (J3). It was revealed that the HEMA treatment increased the tensile breaking force of the polymer-coated jute textiles (J3) by 13.2 %, and moisture properties decreased by 18–24 %. Further, γ-irradiation of 2.5 and 5.0 kGy was exposed to the processed jute fabrics for the yield of improved performance. In this case, a 5.0 kGy dose of γ-irradiation demonstrated maximum improvement compared to their non-irradiated ones, which is 6.1 % and 3.7 % increase of tensile breaking force for J2 (γ) and J3 (γ), respectively, than their non-irradiated jute samples (J2 and J3), whilst the enhancement of the values were 15.4 % and 17.4 %, respectively, compared to the raw jute (J0) sample. The moisture properties were reduced by up to 60 % as a function of γ-irradiation. Further characterization of the jute fabric samples was assessed by FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared) Spectroscopy, XRD (X-ray diffraction), TGA (Thermogravimetric Analysis), and SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy) testing.