Contribution of textile technology to the development of modern compression bandages

Although compression therapy is a key factor in the successful treatment of some circulatory problems in lower limbs, this form of therapy includes some risks if used inappropriately. Based on deliberate application of pressure to a lower limb, using a variety of textile materials, elastic or rigid, in order to produce a desired clinical effects, modern compression therapy presents a good sample of successful penetration of textile technology into the phlebology field of medicine. However, although compression therapy has been in use for over 150 years, there exists a low awareness among practitioners and patients on product usage, application techniques and benefits of appropriate selection of bandages for determined types of leg venous diseases. Also, not all manufacturers of compression textile materials seem to be conscious of end -users’ needs. Simultaneously, impressive developments in the field of elastan fibers and modern knitting and weaving technologies, offer chances for realization of completely new types of compression bandages, capable of making an important contribution to the management of venous disease. In this review, starting from the brief account of pathogenesis and the presentation of compression therapy principle, an account of the contribution of all sectors in the textile technological chain to a modern compression therapy is given

Structure and properties of tempo-oxidized cotton fibers

In this paper, the influence of the catalytic oxidation using water soluble and stable nitroxyl radical 2,2´,6,6´-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxyl (TEMPO) on structure and properties of cotton fibers was studied. In particular, the selective TEMPO-mediated oxidation has become very interesting way for introduction of functional groups into cellulose fibers with the aim to obtain oxycellulose fibers with specific properties. Unmodified and modified fibers were characterized in terms of weight loss values, introduced functional groups and crystallinity index. Also, oxidized fibers were characterized in terms of the sorption, morphological, and physico-mechanical properties. The TEMPO-oxidized cotton fibers show a minimum increase of fineness (from 1.32 to 1.28 dtex) and increase of crystallinity index (up to 91.9%), while the tensile strength of fibers decreases (up to 10.82 cN/tex). By the TEMPO-mediated oxidation of cotton fibers significant amount of carboxyl groups (up to 0.795 mmol/g cell) can be introduced into cellulose fibers. Introduced hydrophilic carboxyl groups increases the sorption properties of oxidized fibers, that can be used directly or for further chemical modification

Wetting properties of hemp fibres modified by plasma treatment

The influence of dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) on the physico-chemical properties of hemp fibres was studied in this paper. Plasma-modification of hemp fibres was performed at atmospheric pressure. The source of the DBD was developed in the Quantum Optics Laboratory of the Faculty of Physics in Belgrade as a device prototype with plane-parallel geometry, for the continuous plasma-modification or treatment of textile materials. The capillary rise method was applied to evaluate the improvement in water uptake of the DBD treated hemp fibres. The plasma-modified hemp fibres have highly improved wetting properties without changing physico-mechanical properties (tensile strength and elongation)