Abstract: Finishing treatments are used to improve the comfort indices or to induce special properties for the textile supports. Regardless of their category, all these treatments can generate maximum 2 effects, like fireproof and anti-crease, waterproof and oleophobization, anti-crease and fireproof or any other such combination, according to the finishing agents and treatment conditions. Multi-functional finishes (more than 3 simultaneous effects) require the judicious selection of the treatment agents, working conditions and most suited textile support. The selection of the finishing agents is based on the chemical structure, reactivity, compatibility with other chemical compounds, efficiency. The nature of the textile fibers, fabric weight, density and destination are the selection criteria for the textile support. This paper deals with the creation, experimentation and optimization of a finishing treatment that generates 4 simultaneous effects: fireproof, anti-soil, oleophobization and anti-crease. The final treatment was obtained by combining the substances that are normally used in the classic individual finishing treatments, following numerous experimental combinations of different concentrations, treatment agents and catalysts. The optimum treatment variants were identified using statistical analysis. The method of multiple linear regression allowed quantifying the multi-functional finishes by modelling each effect (the char length, crease recovery angles and anti-soil and oleophobization effects). The study also determined the positive/negative influence of the 3 independent factors (the treatment conditions, X1, X2 and X3) on the optimum multiple effects; they corresponded to the situation when X1, X2 and X3 were close to the “zero” value.

Keywords: Fireproof, anti-soil, oleophobization, anti-crease, statistical analysis.