Sustainable and Ecofriendly Amphiphilic Starch-Based Dispersion with Effective Sizing on Different Yarns

As a sustainable and environmentally friendly polymer, starch is widely employed in textile sizing to enhance the weavability of yarns. However, due to the shortcomings of uneven liquid-phase dispersion and weak film-forming, the prospects for most starch applied to the sizing industry are severely limited. Hence, this work cleverly designed an amphiphilic starch utilizing small cationic molecules, hydrophobic reagents, and starch, which not only improved the requirements of film formation and dispersion uniformity of starch but also realized the applicability to yarns with different compositions. The dispersion exhibited a uniform particle size (905–990 nm) with long-lasting dispersion stability (7 days). Films with favorable film-forming exhibited outstanding mechanical properties with 72.72 MPa of breaking strength and 4.86% of breaking elongation and a hydrophilic effect (water contact angle of 45°), which facilitated the smooth production of the modified yarns. The breaking strength and abrasion resistance of modified cotton yarn were enhanced by 77.4% and 317%, respectively, and the hairiness index of the yarn was decreased by 85.7%. Furthermore, the performances of the modified blended yarn also achieved a marked improvement in relation to the original yarns. Consequently, the amphiphilic starch constructed in this work possesses the sustainable potential to meet the sizing requirements for different yarns.