The influence of cork on the thermal insulation properties of home textiles

Novel strategies and technologies to obtain home textiles with thermal insulation properties are increasingly being researched as a strategic approach in the textile industry. The fabric conductivity and heat resistance are two important parameters to take into consideration in order to obtain a structure with improved performance. It is widely accepted that thermal insulation fabrics that resist heat flow possess still air in their structure. The higher is the thickness of the fabric, the bigger is the air entrapped in the structure and thus better is their thermal insulation properties. Nevertheless, these types of textiles face a critical challenge that is obtaining a structure with decreased thickness, without losing the thermal insulation properties required to provide comfort to users. The main objective of this work was to develop different low thickness fibrous structures with improved thermal insulation properties by incorporating cork particles within nonwoven structures. The nonwoven fabrics were produced with wool and hollow polyester fibers and the cork particles were incorporated within the structure in the process of nonwoven fabrication. Nonwoven structures have been prepared in different compositions including 75 % of wool and 25 % of hollow polyester blended with cork granules with sizes ranging from 1-2 and 2-5 mm using as a control an agglomerated cork of 0.8 mm. After production, samples were tested for their thermal behaviour using Alambeta equipment. Results have shown that nonwoven composition comprising cork particles greatly influences the thermal performance, and enables for obtaining a low weight material with improved thermal insulation properties.