New functional fabric, so you bid farewell to \”sweat da da,\” the summer, the hydrophobic outer layer, the inner layer of sweat, like skin!

With the development of science and technology, people on the clothing is not only beautiful appearance, wearing comfort is becoming increasingly important, high-performance fabric helps sweat discharged from the skin gradually got people of all ages. In recent years, there have been a lot of moisture fabric has a discharge function to promote the skin sweat. However, such fabrics often do not have the ability to repel external liquid contaminant, and is currently commercially available air-permeable fabric moisture vapor transmission rate is much lower than the average person\’s sweat rate, resulting in no such fabrics human comfort significantly improved . Recently, researchers at Cornell University and Hong Kong Polytechnic University\’s cooperation, imitation of human skin sweat discharge mode, designed a \”imitation skin\” directional transmission liquid fabric , the fabric in the super hydrophobic substrate a space formed with a unidirectional liquid transport channels, as \”sweat\”, as both will sweat well, it can repel contaminants external fluid, which are commercially available water permeability of the best commercial permeability 15 times the fabric. Meanwhile, the fabric also has excellent abrasion resistance, more than 10,000 cycles without significant change in performance times! Human skin is an ideal directional liquid transport material may be discharge of sweat and the body can be well protected against contamination from external liquids.

\”skin-like\” fabric Production

Researchers by inspired skin, the skin having a similar function and \”skin-like\” fabric prepared. 2, the researchers used as substrates cotton fabric, with perfluorooctyl triethoxysilane (PFOTES) pretreated coated titanium dioxide particles, to impart superhydrophobic; then modified by plasma treatment techniques resistance, is created on the hydrophobic porous fabric wettability gradient channels, as a topical \”sweat\” to obtain a wide range of applications \”skin-like\” fabric.

Fabric orientation of the water transport properties [ 123] to test the orientation of the fabric water transmission function, researchers fabrics inclination angle of 45 ° shown in FIG. 3 is placed, when the water drops from the top fabricWhen the droplet gradually accumulate on the fabric, and the fabric from slipping off quickly, the entire process without any water infiltration. After the dropwise addition of water when the back of the fabric, the fabric soon drop contact spontaneously through the fabric, transferred to the other side of the fabric, and during this test the transmission rate far exceeds the body of water with vigorous exercise the maximum sweat rate, and is approximately

is the best commercially available Gore (Gore-Tex) 15 times the commercial fabric.

Figure 3 directed water transport performance testResearchers turn \”skin-like\” fabric covering the blue glass with silica gel, 4 , the shower faucet spout for 10 seconds, when the up side of the fabric, the color of the inside of the same silica gel,

no water penetration into the bottle ; and when the back up, bottles silicone portion in the turned pink, indicating the water into the bottle through the fabric, water-directional transmission further demonstrates the ability of the fabric.

FIG. 4. \”skin-like\” fabric washout test

orientation sweat transport properties of the fabric Subsequently, researchers Artificial analog sweat sweat fabric directional transmission function in practical application, shown in Figure 5, when the droplets of sweat fabric face

when, sweat adhered to the surface, and then rotated to a certain angle, to continue dropping sweat, it can be seen sweat quickly fall, without any penetration. When

Figure 5. The directional transfer fabric sweat testAs illustrated when researchers added dropwise perspiration

back of the fabric 6 , sweat quickly to spontaneously infiltrate the fabric, the fabric is then inclined, sweat rolled down as quickly , indicating that the fabric of the sweat having the same directional transmission capability with practical application in the field of wearable potential.

orientation sweat transport Figure 6. Fabric Test

The abrasion resistance of the fabric Finally, the researchers tested the durability of the fabric sex. The results shown in Figure 7, the contact angle of the fabric up to 10,000 cyclesAfter slightly decreased, and the content even after more than 25,000 cycles TiO2 nanoparticles almost no change, indicating that researchers prepared \”skin-like\” fabric having a

is excellent in wear resistance , to meet the the actual needs of the application.

Figure 7. fabric wear testIn this article, the researchers developed a novel skin-like fabric, fabric superhydrophobic and plasma processing technology binding, the fabric has strong hydrophobicity and water transport function of orientation, the manufacturing process is simple and effective. This novel widely \”skin-like\” fabric can be used directly for the development of high performance and intelligent clothing, and is expected to be directionally transmit the art to give a liquid, such as liquid separation and purification, wound dressings, and a flexible membrane fuel cell microfluidic device, etc. field. Original link: https: //advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/14/eaaz0013