In recent years, the interest in reusing recycled fibers as building materials has been growing as a consequence of their ability to reduce the production of waste and the use of virgin resources, taking advantage of the potential that fibrous materials may offer to improve thermal and acoustic comfort. Composite panels, made of 100% wool waste fibers and bound by means of either a chitosan solution and a gum Arabic solution, were tested and characterized in terms of acoustic and non-acoustic properties. Samples with a 5 cm thickness and different density values were made to investigate the influence of flow resistivity on the final performance. Experimental results demonstrated that the samples had thermal conductivity ranging between 0.049 and 0.060 W/(m K), well comparable to conventional building materials. Similarly, acoustic results were very promising, showing absorption coefficients that, for the given thickness, were generally higher than 0.5 from 500 Hz on, and higher than 0.9 from 1 kHz on. Finally, the effects of the non-acoustic properties and of the air gap behind the samples on the acoustic behavior were also analyzed, proving that the agreement with absorption values predicted by empirical models was also very good.

The presence of microcapsules has increased in the textile field. They have been applied as a possible means of introducing new products to textiles, such as fragrances, antibiotics, skin hydrants, etc. This work studied the influence of resin on the adhesion of microcapsules to cotton fabrics. To paste microcapsules to fabrics, they should be in contact with a bath which contains microcapsules, resin and water. Different concentrations of resin were applied to a fragrance microcapsule bath by impregnation. This research focuses on determining the influence of resin quantity on the microcapsule resistance to washing out of the fabrics during washing treatments. Two experimental techniques, scanning electron microscopy and counter apparatus, were used to determinate this influence. We conclude that with a higher quantity of resin, more microcapsules remain on the fabric surface. It was shown that longer microcapsules are washed out of the fabric faster than smaller microcapsules.

The hydrophilicity of fibers is directly related to the comfort of a fabric and represents one of the most important aspects of a textile. Therefore, polyester (PES) modification has focused on an increase in moisture content and a subsequent improvement of the user’s experience. Based on the glycerol hygroscopic properties, the main objective has been the enhancement of the hydrophilicity of polyester by glycerol treatments. Furthermore, microwave irradiation and alkaline treatment have been applied, in order to increase glycerol adhesion. Treated PES samples were characterized by performing moisture content, negative ion, water diffusion and water vapor resistance analyses. The effect of different treatment conditions such as bath ratio (1/10 or 1/15), temperature (40, 60 or 100 °C), time (2 or 5 min) and microwave radiation intensity (300 or 500 W) was evaluated. The moisture content of treated PES results indicated that by decreasing the bath ratio and increasing the time and temperature the moisture gain can reach almost 14%, which can be easily related to increases in the weight of the fiber. The treatment with alkali was done and led to the highest moisture increase. Treatment with 500 W microwave irradiation led to higher glycerol retention after rinsing. Different experimental conditions were applied to the glycerol-treated PES fabrics, and a clear improvement in moisture content was obtained increasing the comfort. The results were compared with the ones obtained for cotton and wool, where the moisture is higher than non treated PES.

Problems such as the depletion of natural resources and the increase in environmental pollution brought about by industrialization, the concept of recycling gained great importance. Natural dyes have gained importance again with the increase in environmental awareness. For this purpose, the dyeability of recycled cotton yarns with natural dyes was examined in order to both protect natural resources and reduce the waste water load in dyeing. The paper also discussed a comparison between different ways to mordant cotton with different molecular weight chitosan. Although it was seen by FTIR analysis that cotton fibers were dyed, the presence of chitosan could not be clearly seen. It was explained by the use of low amounts of chitosan. It was observed that the mordanting processes performed with chitosan contributed to the increase in the color strengths, and higher color depths were obtained with the increasing chitosan concentration. Simultaneous mordanting in Curcuma longa dyeing, mordanting before Sandalwood dyeing provided higher color depths than others. The washing fastness of the samples dyed with Curcuma longa revealed the necessity of fastness improvement processes. It was concluded that chitosan mordanting process was effective in terms of sustainable natural dyeing, but it was necessary to improve fastness. Graphical Abstract