Janus fabrics with moisture management ability have great potential for improving both physiological and psychological comfort of human body. However, current methods for creating Janus fabrics are typically complex, environmentally unfriendly, and costly. More importantly, the prepared Janus fabrics have demonstrated insufficient mechanical properties and poor fastness, rendering them unsuitable for practical applications. Here, this work proposes a method for constructing Janus fabrics through thermal transfer printing of hydrophobic transfer prints onto a superhydrophilic cotton fabric, followed by creation of a conical micropore array on the fabric surface. The as‐prepared Janus fabrics exhibit excellent unidirectional liquid transport capacity, capable of transporting 50 µL water completely in 11.6 s in the positive direction. Attributed to the durable property of the transfer prints, the Janus fabrics are capable of withstanding over 900 friction cycles and 250 home laundry cycles, which is a great advance in this research field. Additionally, the fabrication process has no detrimental effect on the fabric's breathability, elasticity, and flexibility. Furthermore, the Janus fabric can maintain human body temperature 3.6 °C cooler than that worn with cotton fabric. The fabrication method can provide useful insights for the design and creation of durable Janus fabrics to maximize personal comfort.
This paper demonstrates a simple, flexible, and controllable
technique
to fabricate complex non-rectangular microchannels through the mold
(e.g., balls) embossing-based soft lithography method. The good ductility
of aluminum foil ensures the complete replication of the ball morphology,
resulting in creation of the microchannels with a perfect circular
cross section. By investigating the fabrication parameters such as
the gap size and ball diameter, we can precisely control the width
and height of the circular microchannel. More importantly, the method
can be extended to create more complex channels with a series of cross-sectional
shapes or combined channels through replacing the balls to the molds
with various cross sections. Finally, the complex non-rectangular
channels were designed and utilized to construct microfluidic valves
and improve the mixing results of two liquids.
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