Emerging trend: Open width knit processing The Indian athletic apparel market grew by a whopping 19% CAGR between 2009 and 2017, while the Indian footwear market, which includes sports footwear, grew at 24% CAGR during the same period. These growth prospects of athleisure products are encouraging Indian knit processors to consider expansions and diversifications to cater to the needs of this segment. Many investments are therefore being planned to tap the huge potential presented by this segment, especially as there is not much competition so far. Garment properties like protection, insulation, moisture permeability, stretch, shape retention, optimum heat and moisture regulation, rapid drying, dimensional stability even when wet, durable, easy care, light weight, soft touch, etc., are intrinsic to active wear garments. However, these properties are not readily achievable in 100% cotton, circular knitted fabrics. Hence the need for synthetic circular or warp knitted fabric production and processing becomes inevitable for addressing the opportunities in the active wear segment. The very first step in synthetic active wear processing or spandex processing is spun oil washing. Goller is a major international player in this segment and as major supplier to high end synthetic fabric manufacturers worldwide. Goller was founded in Germany and manufactured its first open width textile processing range in 1948. Goller became a member of the CHTC Fong’s Group in 2006. The integration of Goller into the CHTC Fong’s Group helped it to develop and spread at a tremendous rate its highly engineered textile wet finishing ranges for the textile industry. Today, Goller is a global market leader in the manufacturing of open width textile processing ranges. Goller’s wet processing ranges including those for spun oil washing are widely used to produce high quality woven and knitted fabric in world-wide textile dyeing factories. Objectives of spun oil washing Spun oil washing is a treatment of synthetic woven or knitted (circular/warp knit) fabrics with de-oiling chemicals to remove lubricating oils from the fabric structure. These lubricants are needed in spinning and remain on the fabric through the knitting process. The purpose of open width spun oil washing is to pre-shrink the fabric, reduce and even out the oil distribution on the fabric, and to thus ensure uniform dyeing and finishing results in subsequent finishing steps. If a grey fabric with oils on it is heat set, there is an accumulation of these oils in the stenter. This creates chances of fire in the exhaust pipelines and in the heat exchangers. Oil dripping further creates quality problems in subsequent processing. But after spun oil washing, if the cleaned fabric is pre-heat set, the stenter remains oil-free and safe, eliminating risks of fire and improving fabric quality. The benefits of Goller spun oil washing ranges:
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