Many textiles distinctly tend to adsorb odors from the surrounding air and act as a sink (storage) for volatile substances. This can cause a problem with unpleasant odors when they leave the textile through desorption giving rise to a bad smelling textile. An attractive way to meet this issue is the catalytic destruction of the malodor molecules on the textile surface.

An attractive project

In collaboration with several partners from industry and within the framework of a  CTI project, Empa is developing a PET-based photocatalytic fiber. Malodor molecules present in the surrounding air and adsorbed on the textile should be destroyed on its surface by a photocatalytic process. For this purpose, the catalyst particles are directly incorporated into the fiber.

In this process we make use of:

• specifically modified TiO₂ nanoparticles as photocatalyst,
• analytical methods to assess the odor reduction on a broad range of samples (particles, fibers, fabrics) and
• the pilot melt spinning plant, which enables the production of  composite, bi and tri-component fibers at a laboratory scale.

Odor-reducing photocatalytic fibers have a great range of potential applications, especially in the mobiltech and hometech area.

Contact

Dr. Giuseppino Fortunato 
+41 58 765 76 77
Giuseppino.Fortunato@empa.ch