Moisture Characteristics of Glycerol Treated Bacterial Cellulose Nonwoven

Bacterial cellulose is one of the high potential sustainable materials with numerous applications. This research work analyses the moisture handling ability of the alkali-treated (purified), bleached and dyed bacterial cellulose after glycerol treatment focusing on fashion application. The developed samples are dried at room temperature and evaluated for water absorbency, wicking, water vapor transmission properties, and moisture management indices. Glycerol treated bacterial cellulose nonwovens showed a better absorbency than the dried non-woven. A faster absorbency of 1.48 minutes was noted for the glycerol treated bleached sample. In the case of wicking, bleached and dyed dry samples showed minimum wicking of 5 and 8 mm. No other samples showed wicking ability including the glycerol treated samples. The water vapor permeability results also increased notably after glycerol treatment. An increment of 55% water vapor permeability was noted with purified sample and a 36.9% increment with bleached sample after glycerol treatment. Though the glycerol treated dyed sample showed a similar vapor transmission to the glycerol treated bleached sample, the untreated dyed sample had a maximum vapor permeability of 621.10 g/m2/day. The moisture management analysis results indicated that the glycerol treatment improved the waterproof nature of bacterial cellulose nonwoven to fast-absorbing slow drying fabric. The subjective analysis on the nonwoven fabric handle showed that the glycerol treatment statistically increased the smoothness, softness, flexibility, and draping nature of the sample than the dried sample. However, the subjective analysis also reported that the glycerol treatment significantly increased the stickiness of the nonwoven.