PDMS Silicone Oil in Textile Industry

Fabric Products cited from:  https://pixabay.com/photos/fabric-cambaya-cloth-textile-43354/

Cover Photo cited from: https://pixabay.com/photos/rolls-of-fabric-factory-material-1767504/

Silicone oil usually refers to a linear polysiloxane product that maintains a liquid form at room temperature, and is generally a colorless (or light yellow), odorless, non-toxic, and non-volatile liquid. Their molecular weight is not high, and they are in a fluid state at room temperature, so they are usually called silicone oils. It is generally not simply used, but made through a special formula, and is often used as an auxiliary material to produce a certain effect.

Generally speaking, there are 3 basic forms of silicone oil on the market: pure silicone oil, solution, and emulsion.

1. Pure silicone oil has very strong stability, heat resistance, frost resistance, good storage performance, high flash point and high fire point, and few storage and transportation problems.

2. In fact, it is often necessary to dilute the silicone oil solution. Sometimes it is desirable to add active auxiliary agents (catalysts, crosslinking agents, etc.) to the solution for easy storage and use. Aliphatic, aromatic or chlorinated hydrocarbons can be used as solvents as needed. Other types of solvents are used only in special cases. Generally, the concentration of polymer polysiloxane solution can only reach 35%, otherwise the viscosity will be too high.

3. A large part of silicone oil or products containing silicone oil are made into emulsion form. Compared with solvent silicone oil, it has the advantages of cheap, non-flammable, and harmless to health. Different from solvent-based, all silicone emulsions are "oil-in-water" heterogeneous phase systems, and its external closed phase is the water phase. Silicone oil is dispersed in the water phase with very fine droplets, and it is easy to dilute with water to the desired concentration. For application, the stability of this emulsion can be achieved by making the droplets as thin as possible and the stabilizing effect of the emulsifier.

Hubei Shengbangfan's silicone oil could provide the corresponding silicone oil for textile & fabric industry mentioned above with the special needs from customers. You could know more about the silicone oil at here.

The Role of Silicone Oil in the Textile Industry

Silicone oil can be used as fabric softener, lubricant, waterproofing agent, finishing agent and so on in the textile and garment industry. In order to meet the high-end needs of textiles, chemical product manufacturers are also constantly developing silicone oils that can be used in the same bath with various functional additives such as waterproofing agents, flame retardants, antistatic agents, and color fixing agents, and have a good hand feel. In addition, in order to improve the performance of fabrics, there are also silicone products that can be used in the same bath as dyeing, silicone oil for cotton with a cool feeling, silicone products that can improve the fabric handle, and can give fabrics excellent darkening effect and storage stability. Good, does not affect color fastness, good hand feeling silicone darkening agent, etc. In addition to being used as an additive in textiles to realize the functionalization of textiles, silicone products will also be applied to other fields in textiles, such as the combination of silicone and polyurethane to form a fabric coating; the polymerization of silicone and acrylic to form a fabric printing; organic The combination of silicon and organic fluorine forms a waterproof coating on the surface of the fabric, etc.

Silicone oil can be divided into primary product and secondary product according to its processing status.

The former refers to silicone oil products before processing, including four categories: hydroxyl silicone oil, silicon-functional silicone oil, carbon-functional silicone oil and inactive modified silicone oil. Among these four categories, the first two are customarily called linear silicone oils, and the latter two are called modified silicone oils.

Secondary silicone oil products refer to products such as grease, emulsion, and solution that use silicone oil as a raw material, add thickeners, surfactants, solvents, and additives, and process them through specific processes, such as silicone grease, silicone paste, Defoamer, release agent and release agent, etc.

Evolution History of Domestic Silicone Softeners

The production and application of silicone softeners in China can be said to have gone through 4 generations:

1.      The first generation is a high molecular weight polysiloxane emulsion (hydroxyl emulsion) with hydroxyl terminals.

It is formed by emulsion polymerization of octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4), water, emulsifier, catalyst and other raw materials under certain conditions.

2.      The second generation is polyether modified silicone oil.

It is made by hydrosilylation reaction between methyl hydrogen-containing silicone oil and polyethers such as polyethylene glycol and polypropylene glycol with unsaturated bonds at the end.

3.      The third generation is polysiloxane emulsion with active groups (amino, epoxy).

The polymerization method is basically the same as that of hydroxyemulsion, except that a certain amount of silane coupling agent is added to the raw material. The introduction of these amino and epoxy functional groups has greatly improved the softness, smoothness, elasticity and durability of the finishing effect of the finished fabric. The disadvantage is that there are demulsification and oil floating phenomena during use. Due to the use of ionic surfactants in this type of polysiloxane emulsion with active groups, the emulsion is strongly cationic or anionic, and when compounded with other additives, it has strong selectivity and poor compatibility.

4.      The fourth generation is modified silicone oil represented by amino silicone oil.

It is the most representative type of silicone softener on the market. Usually, we call aminoethylaminopropyl polydimethylsiloxane standard amino silicone oil, and other amino-substituted polysiloxanes are called modified silicone oils.

It is due to the strong polarity of the amino group, the amino silicone oil interacts with the hydroxyl and carboxyl groups on the surface of the fiber to form a very strong orientation and adsorption with the fiber, reducing the friction coefficient between the fibers, which means that when the fabric is held in the hand, it can be used with little A small force can make the fibers start to slide, so that they feel soft. In recent years, organo-modified silicone oils have developed rapidly, and many organo-modified silicone oils with special properties have emerged.

Summary

Silicone oil has been applied more and more in textile industry, in the nations like Bangladesh whose textile industry is very advanced and has a large amount, the corresponding needs of silicone oil is also large.