Functionalization of polyethylene terephthalate knitted fabric with cowpea protein and biopolymer complex: Applications for enhancing wettability and UV-Protection properties.

In recent years, increasing environmental awareness and human skin protection from harmful radiation of the sun has attracted attention amongst numerous researchers. Here, a simple strategy was developed to enhance the hydrophilicity and ultraviolet (UV) protection of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) knitted fabric surface via grafting green cowpea protein (CP) with gum arabic modified epoxy (GAE) as a cross-linking agent. Chemical grafting between pretreated PET and GAE as well as between GAE and CP improved the hydrophilicity and UV protection of PET knitted Fabric. The enhanced surface wettability was confirmed by the decreased water contact angle from 135° to zero °. Moreover, the UV protection factor rating of modified PET knitted fabric was higher, indicating that the modifier layer caused scattering and absorbance of UV light. This approach has shown promising results for improving hydrophilicity and UV protection with sustained mechanical durability of 7 washing cycles.