Development of UV-Protective Hemp-Based Eco-Friendly Textiles

When exposed to UV rays, one of the rays emitted from the sun, for a certain period of time, it can harm the human body. Therefore, people should be protected from these harmful rays, especially children who are more sensitive need extra care as they often spend time outside. This study aimed to design an environmentally friendly seasonal outerwear fabric with high UV protection. To do so, the protection level of rib, half-Milan, and full-Milan fabrics manufactured from the yarns made of viscose, cotton, hemp and/or Refibra fiber mixtures is investigated. Additionally, a hybrid yarn feeding scheme is adopted, namely, feeding 4 ends of Ne 30/1 yarn and 2 ends of Ne 30/2 yarn, during knitting process in an attempt to have the benefit of various types of fibers and yarns involved. In the light of the results, an alternative rib-based structure namely pique rib is developed by employing comparatively more miss stitches in the structure. Generally speaking, the UPF performance of the structures under discussion worsen as the percentage of cotton and/or viscose and Refibra fibers in the yarns increases. Furthermore, it is observed that the amount of the hemp fiber in the fabric is not influential on the UV-blocking behavior of the fabrics. Finally, the structures knitted using the yarn feeding scheme composed of 4 ends of Ne 30/1 yarn have higher UPF performance than the others, and among all the structures the pique one exhibits the best performance so far as UV protection is concerned.