Textiles: Advances in Research and Applications (Manufacturing Technology Research)

Textile materials or materials made from textiles are probably among the most important materials in the world. Textile materials are not only present everywhere in modern daily life, but have been for thousands of years. Besides obvious textile applications such as clothes or hometextile there are also many more hidden applications. For example, textile filters, textiles in production processes or composite materials are just a few ways that they can be applied. Altogether, it is implied that modern civilization without textiles is not possible. This book is dedicated to the advances in textile research and application. Here, readers must keep in mind that the final textile in the final application is the product of many different production steps, which is known as the textile chain. Many different disciplines contribute to this textile chain, such as chemistry and machine engineering but also less obvious influences like agricultural science in terms of cotton or wool fiber production. The life of a textile material starts with fiber production; this can be a natural process for plant fibers, animal fibers or regenerated fibers from natural resources. In contrast, chemical fibers see their origin via chemical synthesis. After fiber production, yarn production follows, which is in the field of spinning technology. From the yarn comes the textile materials as fabrics or non-wovens are produced using processes such as weaving, knitting, braiding, etc. These textile products are further modified by dyeing and printing processes. Finishing is often also used to realize special functional properties on a textile product. Finally, the textile product is realized as either cloth, home textile or technical application. Besides technical aspects, design and marketing also play an important role. After following this summary, it is obvious that this book cannot cover every single aspect of textile and textile products. Therefore, this book headlines with every chapter a topic in the area of textile research and application, which is a topic in actual scientific research but also in industrial development. The main topics include: microwave based processes, plasma technology, photoactive textiles, electrospinning, braiding processes, wool materials, coatings, textile functionalization, and UV-protective and light responsive materials This book is dedicated to readers from universities and industries that engage in some form of textile production. For the industry, it can help to promote ideas for new innovative processes and products. For university students especially graduates s it can help to broaden their expertise in very different fields of the textile world. Also, established scientists could benefit from this text to use as a tool to generate new ideas for further research.