Snapshot

Air conditioning is the process of treating air also as to control simultaneously its temperature, humidity, cleanliness and distribution to meet the requirements of "conditioned space". An air conditioning system may use heating, cooling, humidifying, de-humidifying and filtering units of a combination of these depending upon the outside weather. 

Yarn and textiles are very sensitive to air quality. They emit moisture into the dry ambient air and lose their elasticity and tear resistance. So if the humidity levels are too low, it can often lead to tearing of the yarn, causing timely and costly disruptions to production. Also, in a controlled humid environment, machine glide quality is increased due to less frictional resistance.

The reason humidity is important to textile materials is because all textiles are hygroscopic, meaning they release moisture to the atmosphere when the humidity of the air is lower than the equilibrium relative humidity of the material, but absorb moisture when the atmosphere is too damp. Relative humidity levels will affect the material at all levels, whether it is manufacturing, use by the customer and all other levels of production.

The humidity levels can be controlled using industrial humidification systems and there are many humidification systems for the textile industry. However, there will always be moisture loss in the stage of processing, because the temperature of the material will increase. Straight after this process, the atmospheric humidity can be increased, so the textile will go through a regain.