Md. Amir Khasru
Introduction:
Within the revolution of the human civilization, the demands for the special clothing increase very rapidly. From ancient times, humans tried to add many features to textile clothing to give more comfort. Some auxiliary items, such as body spray, perfume, and screen protective creams, become famous with clothing in fashion trends. Human beings start to use external body perfumes to prevent the body skin’s bad smells. The unappreciated smell felt in the nose is known as an odor. Bad smells like odor create very unhealthy and odd feelings [3] . Due to odor in clothes & the environment, one faces many problems in school, college, university, office, and so on. In general, synthetic fibers create more odor compared to natural textile fibers. Recently, too many innovations are developed in textiles to prevent odor in dress, like anti-odor technology. Anti-odor technology works by silver coating, anti-microbial coating, etc. [6]
How are odors generated in the fabrics?
In general, odor is formed due to bacterial attraction on the skins when they contact with each other in the presence of vapour. The complex mixture of sweat glands and sebaceous glands is the human body’s perspiration. Eccrine glands and apocrine glands are two types of sweat glands. Sweat is normally a dilute and odorless fluid containing water and sodium chloride as major component.
Micronutrients like potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron, vitamins and metabolites like urea, lactate, amino acids, bicarbonates with varying concentrations are also minor components. Initially generated sweats are odorless but the bacterial degradation in the skins due to contact with can make the sweat odorous. Trillions of bacteria, viruses, fungi, archaea are formed on the skin surface which are comes from the environment, external cloths. From the above information it is clear that the microbiomes in the human skin leads to odorous sweats. [1]
Malodour formation due to Re-wearing clothes:
Malodour defines having bad odors. Sweat, bacteria, and other metabolites are transferred into dry clothes when skin comes into contact with the skin. After washing and drying, bacteria and other microorganisms would not be properly removed from the fabric surfaces. Remaining microorganisms, like bacteria, easily contact moisture, and in contact they react with each other and generate malodour. Rewearing clothes, storing bacteria into cloth, generates odor and increases odor intensity.[2]
Odor prevention techniques:
According to many research studies, antimicrobial agent coatings with fabrics are kill & prevent the growth of microorganisms. For durability, treatments are given to the clothes requiring frequent laundering (e.g. underwear, sports clothing) Silver, tricoslan, polyhexamethylene biguanides (PHMB), quaternary ammonium compounds (QAC) are common antimicrobial agent used in textile to control odor.
Textile odor control through adsorption is another technology to control odors from the clothes. It collects odorous substances and neutralizes them. Neutralizing odorous substances also prevents odor generations. Activated carbon, Zeolites, Cyclodextrins, Silica gel are common adsorbents to control odor [5]
Sustainable odor control textile technologies:
From the ancient times, human civilization is trying to control body odor in contact with clothes. Wool fabrics are comparatively less odorous from other natural & synthetic fabrics. Synthetic fibers are produces likely more odor in clothes. Too many companies are developed their own anti-odor technologies and odor control textile finishing chemical process. Here, well known some odor control technology name with their producer are mentioned.
HeiQ Fresh™: HeiQ controls various sources of bad odors. Silver-free bio-based or mineral-based ingredients are textile odor control technology used in the fabric. The real problem of smells are adsorbing Volatile Organic Compounds or the “smelly molecules”. [8]
It works with three main approaches which are mentioned below;
- It binds volatile organic components to non-volatile components.
- The source of the odor is blocked by the prevention of bacterial attract.
- Destroy free radicals responsible for the volatile malodor.
Polygiene StayFresh antibacterial textile technology: Polygiene StayFresh antibacterial textile technology prevents bacteria from growing on fabrics and textiles, so they don’t smell. It is based on silver chloride, a salt that naturally occurs in water and soil. Added during the textile finishing stage, it requires no extra energy or water.
- It prevents the growth of odor-causing bacteria. So, smell simply never gets a foothold.
- Keeps textiles fresh and hygienic Sweat, humidity, or other dampness cannot get bacteria multiplying thanks to the presence of Polygiene StayFresh technology.
- Wear more, wash less, Less smell means you don’t need to wash your textiles as often. [7]
Odegon Fabric: Odegon produces a complete odour-absorbing product which is not harmful, not a biocide, not a treatment. Odegon technologies capture odorous molecules from nano-pores by van der wales force. Odorous molecules are washed away from the skin of fabrics and thus textile odors are neutralizes. [9]
Microban anti-odor Technology: Microban is working with five textile antimicrobial and odor control technologies. AEGIS®, AEGIS Vesta®, ZPTech®, Scentry®, Scentry Revive® are the categories. When odors come into contact with the technologies, these technology are neutralizes odors. The technologies proven to neutralize odors & five consecutive wears between washes.
Market Analysis of Anti-odor Clothes: Anti-odor textile’s global market size was 1.48 Billion USD in 2024. According to Business Research insights forecasting, Global market size will reach around 2.66 Billion USD by 2032 where CAGR 7.6%. & forecast period 2024-2032. [10]
Conclusion: Nowadays, odor in textile clothing has become a common problem for everyday life. At any meeting, conference, shopping mall, or everywhere we regularly face a bad smell problem. The presence of sweat, bacteria, and other antimicrobial agents accumulated in the body causes bad odor. Anti-odor technologies prevent the phenomenon of odor generation by various methods. Global market sizes of odor control textiles are increasing, and thus too many companies are producing their clothes with innovative technologies
