Cotton fabric was successfully modified using a simple mist polymerization with polyurethane (PU) prepolymer and ethylene glycol as the monomers. Scanning electron microscope showed the presence of a very thin polymer coating on the cotton fiber surface. Martindale abrasion tests revealed that the thin PU coating imparted to the cotton fabric a doubled wearing durability compared with the original fabric. Additional experiments demonstrated that the mist polymerization has little impact on the desired cotton properties such as water absorptivity, vapor transmissibility, mechanical property, and flexibility. Considering the excellent balance between the enhanced abrasion resistance and the cotton natures, this surface modification methodology has potential to fabricate wearing durable textiles.
A facile strategy for fabricating scalable stamps has been developed using cross-linked polyacrylamide gel (PAMG) that controllably and precisely shrinks and swells with water content. Aligned patterns of natural DNA molecules were prepared by evaporative self-assembly on a PMMA substrate, and were transferred to unsaturated polyester resin (UPR) to form a negative replica. The negative was used to pattern the linear structures onto the surface of water-swollen PAMG, and the pattern sizes on the PAMG stamp were customized by adjusting the water content of the PAMG. As a result, consistent reproduction of DNA patterns could be achieved with feature sizes that can be controlled over the range of 40%–200% of the original pattern dimensions. This methodology is novel and may pave a new avenue for manufacturing stamp-based functional nanostructures in a simple and cost-effective manner on a large scale.
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