The fabrication and functional properties of cooling, thermal insulation, and anti-UV polyester knitted fabrics

The functional cooling and thermal insulation (TI) powders were ground by a wet ball grinding machine with 360 nm mean (D50) and 736 nm maximum (D99) particle size. A 1.0 wt% sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) dispersant was added to avoid the aggregating phenomenon and to make the dry type of cooling and thermal insulation powders dry by the spray drying method. Then, the functional polyester/cooling and TI master batch with 12% powder content were fabricated by a twin screw machine. The 120d/72f cooling polyester partial oriented yarn (POY) with cooling powder was made by the melting spinning machine and 75d/72f cooling polyester draw textured yarn (DTY) was spun by a Barmag type false twist machine. The 100d/144f polyester DTY yarn with thermal insulation function was made from the above same methods. Furthermore, the circular interknitted fabrics was fabricated by circular knitting machine with 28 gauges and the finished knitted fabric was produced by scouring, bleaching, dyeing and tentering processes. The 100d/144f DTY TI yarn with 58 wt% and 62 wt% were used as technical face and 75d/72f DTY (WINDRY) with 42 wt% and 38 wt% as technical back of knitted fabric to form an interlock knitted structure. Finally, the cooling and thermal insulation functions of the finished knitted fabrics and their end applications were investigated.