A study on washing resistance of pp-HMDSO films deposited on wool fabrics for anti-pilling purposes

In this work plasma polymerized coatings for anti-pilling purposes were deposited on knitted wool fabrics by means of a capacitively coupled RF discharge reactor using hexamethyldisiloxane as precursor. Their resistance to dry and wet cleaning was investigated and compared to that of a wet chemically deposited coating. Different gas mixtures and pre-treatment steps were tested to adjust the plasma process and to improve the film adhesion. An evaluation of the silica-like coatings behaviour to the washing stresses was performed by means of Fourier transform infrared and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Anti-pilling performances of untreated, plasma-treated, and wet chemically treated wool fabrics were assessed.