Temperature changes of plain cotton fabric during liquid absorption process

Purpose – Clothing comfort has been one important and complex area which is the result of a balanced process of heat and moisture/liquid exchange between the human body, the clothing system and the environment. And the clothes will represent different properties when they are in different conditions, which have great influence on human comfort. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the hygroscopicity-exothermicity property of plain cotton fabric. Design/methodology/approach – A real-time testing device for monitoring the temperature change of cotton fabrics after adsorbing liquids was constructed, and serveral liuqids such as water, NaCl solution with different concentrations, NaOH solution with different concentrations, and urea solution with different concentrations were used in this work. Findings – It was found out that absorption of liquids by cotton fabric was followed by the liberation of heat, which increased the temperature of cotton fabric as well as the temperature of surrounding environment, and the process of temperature increase was much shorter than the process of temperature decrease. In addition, the released heat energy were different according to different liquids as well as the concentrations of liquid solutions. Originality/value – There have some studies in the heat of water/vapor sorption of textiles. Here the temperature changes of surrounding environment and fabric after absorbing different liquids were real-time observed and recorded.