Talking about the finishing technology of knitted fabrics

Talking about the finishing technology of knitted fabrics

People often require a lot of small yarn on a T-shirt – this requirement comes from the consumer on the one hand and the production needs on the other. For example, modern high-speed circular machines and warp-knitted machines have high requirements for the tensile force and elasticity of the yarn. Here we emphasize the finishing technique, which plays a very important role in the performance quality of knitted fabrics. Today's modern finishing machinery can provide a new, soft, efficient and economical finishing process to meet the needs of people.

There are various types of knitted garments on the market: on the one hand, there are skin-friendly, soft-featured composite fibers and micro-fiber knitted fabrics; on the other hand, there are functional knitwear for different needs. For knitting technology, today's technology can achieve 50 stitches per inch (2.54 cm), such products have appeared on the market, but the highest market share is the warp knitted fabric of 18 to 32 needles per inch.

Due to the use of various fibers and blends, the shrinkage and chemical and physical stresses of the different fibers cause problems in the finishing process of the fabric. For example, the elastic grey fabric is very fragile, and the elastic effect will be weakened during the finishing process. However, people often make round woven fabrics open on the circular machine, and then roll them into wide rolls, and then finish them to avoid permanent damage to the elastic molecular structure of the fabric by high pressure and high temperature. This keeps the elasticity constant during finishing.

This single-function machine is still visible everywhere, and most of the post-organizer operators take effective measures to harness the power of the machine.

Multifunctional finishing machine

Modern finishing machinery has been modularized and can largely meet the individual needs of users. Such equipment requires complete functions, high performance, strong processing capability, easy operation, process optimization, economical, flexible, and environmental protection requirements. This versatile device handles a wide range of products, including fabrics, knitwear and pile fabrics, and can handle small batches, even hundreds of meters of fabric, which are promising.

New technologies are emerging

Lafer, based in Schio, Italy, has introduced a device for napping, which adds lining to sweatshirts and winter knitwear. At the recent Asian Textile Machinery Exhibition (ITMA) held in Singapore, Lafite launched the “accelerated finishing” slogan to promote the equipment. This ultra-soft fleece (UtraSoft-T) was introduced two years ago to process circular woven fabrics. The company claims that patented fabric stretchers and special brushed garments can even handle velvet construction.

Lindauer-Dornier, based in Lindau, Germany, has been working on circular woven fabrics for 25 years. The company's machines use a flexible circular woven fabric stretcher for singeing, bleaching and mercerizing to avoid wrinkles during processing. The latest reform is to replace the rubber fixed roller and the symmetrical roller with non-contact magnetic control. According to the company, due to the improvement of this technology, the quality problems caused by the pressure and the spinning of the knitted fabric can be reduced. In order to save energy and cost during the wet processing of ultramicron and elastic blended fiber circular woven fabrics, including heat setting and drying, effective humidity values must be guaranteed. With the new cylindrical water machine (EcoSqueeze), the fabric no longer has defects such as indentation and weft, which fully meets the product quality requirements.

Some companies are committed to the research of drying technology. BrücknerTrockentechnik in Leonberg, Germany, developed a special treatment for round machines and warp knits, and proposed the concept of flattening and was named PowerLine. This technology uses a complex system to control the direction of the incoming and outgoing airflow to optimize the drying process. At the same time, it is applied to the elastic knitted fabric in combination with the feeding mechanism, and is stretched before the knitted fabric is shaped. According to the requirements of different processes, the degree of heating can be controlled in the drying process, and the residual moisture is controlled accordingly, so as to avoid over-drying.

In the summer of 2004, Monforts, based in M?nchengladbach, Germany, began to certify products that meet the company's finishing standards and issued Monforized quality certification labels. Monforts launched a series of fluffy dryers and spread dryers. Finishing quality standards for equipment such as continuous dyeing machines and shrink-proof finishing machines. According to the company, Men Fuji launched the “MONFORIZED” certification, which aims to help textile buyers to distinguish the quality of printing and dyeing and ironing companies. For printing and finishing companies, they can prove that they are equipped with modern equipment and the equipment performance is good. Fabrics with a high standard of quality can be produced. The “MONFORIZED” certification will only be issued to textile manufacturers who use the door Fuji modern equipment and maintain the level of the door Fuji standard. The validity period is 2 years. After the expiration, the manufacturer will wait for the equipment to pass the test of the Fuji Technician to be renewed.

According to Men Fuji, more than 20 international textile manufacturers have obtained the certification in the short months after the “MONFORIZED” certification, including 10 Chinese companies, such as Jiangsu Hongliu Sheet Group Co., Ltd. (Jiangyin City) Sheet factory), Shanghai Huayuan Home Textiles (Group) Co., Ltd., Kaiping Benda Textile, etc. In addition, fabric manufacturers have received “MONFORIZED” certification in Pakistan, Turkey, Germany, Italy and Belgium.

According to Hong Kong Fongs (Lixin), its ECO-8 multi-ring loose dyeing machine (MultiRopesoft) not only dyes woven and knitted fabrics, but also greatly reduces production costs. According to the company, the internal transmission system of the machine has been optimized overall, with only a small amount of water, energy and chemicals, and the dyeing effect is significantly improved. The conveyor system also has a deployment device to prevent scratches and wrinkles. The inner cavity is coated with a layer of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) so that the fabric can pass through comfortably.

The well-known Swiss company Sandex in the European textile machinery industry is also an expert in knitwear finishing equipment. Since the Singapore Textile Machinery Show in 2001, new products have been introduced. The company's Santasoft equipment is used to chemically soften fabrics without chemicals, especially for pigmented fabrics and mechanical softening of natural and man-made fibers. The Santasoft machine uses a high-strength tumbling method, a non-chemical treatment method, to soften knitted and woven fabrics to break the rigidity of the fabric. With this process, it has excellent treatment effects for pigment printed fabrics, twill fabrics, viscose/cotton woven fabrics for outerwear, linen and linen blends, cotton and velvet products. In general, all textiles have a hard and rigid feel due to the final processing (such as roller yarn or pigment printing), but the handle can be greatly improved after being processed by Santasoft technology. In the high-quality textile market, there is a growing demand for chemically-free green cotton or finished products. Due to the unique quality characteristics of Santasoft technology, it can meet this market requirement.

future development

Just as architects pay attention to building bricks, the world's leading textile chemical manufacturers are paying attention to the systematic research of chemical substances so that the chemicals can be matched with each other, mainly to simplify the process of printing and finishing.

The recognition of products by consumers is one aspect, and manufacturers are constantly thinking about users. Sustainability is everyone's concern, as well as safety in the production process, continuous optimization of the production process and cost reduction are the goals pursued by people. In this process, the purchase of cheap finishing products is not the main thing. What is important is that water, energy consumption and waste disposal make the product profit margin greatly reduced. At the same time, high permeability problems, extraction of chemical substances and waste utilization requirements should be considered.

Hartmut Hasse, general manager of BASF, the world's most famous textile finishing chemical company based in Ludwigshafen, Lafayette, Germany, said at the recently concluded Singapore Textile Machinery Show that “we use modern technology as a consumer. Provide innovative and powerful products, and strive to give consumers a better choice in terms of quality, efficiency and environmental protection.