Highly Breathable and Abrasion-Resistant Membranes with Micro-/Nano-Channels for Eco-Friendly Moisture-Wicking Medical Textiles

Abstract

One-way water transport is a predominant feature of comfortable textiles used in daily life. However, shortcomings related to the textiles include their poor breathability and durability. In this study, low-cost and eco-friendly PLA/low-melt (polylactic acid) LMPLA-thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) membranes were fabricated through a needle punch/hot press and electrospinning method. The micro-/nano-channels, used for the first time, endowed the composite membranes with robust, breathable, moisture-permeable, and abrasion-resistant performance. By varying the nano- layer thickness, the resulting 16–40 μm membranes exhibited excellent one-way water transport, robust breathability and moisture permeability, and good abrasion resistance. Nano-layer thickness was found to be a critical performance factor, balancing comfort and protection. These results may be useful for developing low-cost, eco-friendly, and versatile protective products for medical application.

Fast Sweat Wicking Enabled by Unidirectional Water Transport in Biodegradable Trilayered Porous Membranes Produced via Papermaking

“…Consequently, once the water feeding stopped, a noticeable disparity appeared in water content between the hydrophilic and hydrophobic layers. That is, the hydrophilic layer maintained a substantial amount of water after the end of the water transfer behavior, whereas the hydrophobic layer remained relative dry, indicating that as soon as the droplets touched the hydrophobic layer of trilayered porous membranes, it could be effectively pushed into the pore channel with progressively larger apertures and extracted by the capillary force of the hydrophilic layer. ,, For the PF/(PF-PLA)/PLAnw membranes, the water content of the hydrophobic layer (closed to skin) retained less water than that of other membranes due to larger changes in gradient wettability between each layer in trilayered membranes, which means it possessed a stronger capillary force to extract the water from the hydrophobic layer to the hydrophilic layer thereby maintaining the dryness of the hydrophobic layer. − The accumulative one-way transport capacity (AOTC) and the overall moisture management capacity (OMMC) are important indexes to evaluate the unidirectional transport performance of trilayered porous membranes. Figure f illustrates the AOTC and OMMC of the three-layered porous membrane.…”

“…Additionally, the main strategies to prepare directional-water-transport (DWT) membranes, e.g., electrostatic spinning method − and chemical hydrophilic modification, are limited due to their complex fabrication process, not allowing for large-scale production. The papermaking process is a molding method in which natural or man-made fibers are hydrophilized in water to form a suspension of a certain consistency; after that, the water is filtered to form a uniform network of fibers on the surface of the web, which is a mature and scalable technology for fabrication of DWT membranes attributing to its simple process …”

Integrated High Barrier and Efficient Moisture‐Wicking Multilayer Textile for Medical and Health Protection

“…The MWPFM showed high contact angles for water (138°), synthetic blood (125°), and 75% ethanol aqueous solution (115°), which was attributed to their small pore structure and low surface energy generated by finishing spray on PU FM. [ 26 ] It was noteworthy that the WCA and BCA did not vary with time, while the ECA decreases with time. In addition, the variation of WCA, BCA, and ECA of MWPFM with the abrasion cycles is shown in Figure S7, Supporting Information.…”