Abstract—In the late 90s, the textile industry has given rise to organic textiles. Since then, the concern for environmental quality has grown in the research and development of new environmentally friendly products as an important factor for sustainable development and economically feasible for population. Bacterial cellulose (BC) is synthesized by bacteria belonging to the genera of bacteria- Aceto, in particular very efficient gram- negative bacteria, such as Gluconobacter xylinu. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the potential application of textile finishing processes in the bacterial cellulose (BC development in order to give it more suitable properties to be used as a material for fashion design. We decided to use the knowledge of textile processing along with the knowledge about biotechnology in order to transform the BC in a hydrophobic material. The results of BC contact angle test showed an increase of about 60° comparing with untreated BC, thereby achieving a hydrophobic material whose surface reaches a contact angle of 118°. The surface analysis was also performed in order to verify the morphology of hydrophobic BC and compared with the pure BC. This analysis was performed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Finally, we analyzed the crystallinity by X-ray diffraction, comparing the pure hydrophobic BC and BC to observe possible changes in the structure of BC.

Index Terms—bacterial cellulose (BC), hydrophobicity, fashion design, sustainability

Cite: Sílvia Araújo, Fernando Moreira da Silva, and Isabel C. Gouveia, "The Role of Technology Towards a New Bacterial-Cellulose-based Material for Fashion Design," Journal of Industrial and Intelligent Information, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 168-172, June 2015. doi: 10.12720/jiii.3.2.168-172