Investigation of thermal comfort properties of electrospun thermoplastic polyurethane fiber coated knitted fabrics for wind‐resistant clothing

Abstract

The integration of nanofibers into conventional fabrics may open up new opportunities such as improving the comfort performance and thermal management properties of outdoor clothing. Nanofibers are able to form a highly porous mesh and their large surface‐to‐volume ratio improves performance for many applications. This study shows the possible utility of the nanofiber coating on conventional knitted fabrics for improving the wind‐resistance and breathability properties. It was seen that nanofiber coating did not cause a significant effect on water vapor and thermal resistance of electrospun thermoplastic polyurethane nanofiber coated cotton (CO), modal (CMD), viscose (CV), and lyocell (CLY) single jersey fabrics, while resistance to air permeability was increased with the increased nanofiber coating. High level of air resistance was achieved with 30 min of coating. In terms of comfort properties, the nanofiber coating proved to be advantageous due to its lower air permeability with its water vapor permeable structure. However, thermal insulation level of these fabrics was still low and fragile nanofiber layer needed to be protected. Therefore, a multi‐layered fabric form was derived from combination of cotton and lyocell fabrics with a nanofiber layer. The results showed that nanofibers could be used to improve the wind‐resistance and comfort properties of multi‐layered knitted structures.

Electrospinning of ultrafine non‐hydrolyzed silk sericin/PEO fibers on PLA: A bilayer scaffold fabrication

“…Electrospinning is a versatile technique able to produce films made of entangled fibers with wide range of diameters from micro to nanometer scale. [1] This nanometric fiber size presents many interests for different fields of applications such as tissue engineering, [2][3][4][5] energy, [6,7] healthcare, [8,9] protective clothing, [10,11] filtration, [12] and so on. This versatility comes from the wide range of different polymers that can be electrospun, with controlled size and shape which are tunable for the desired applications.…”

Tailoring the Porosity and Breathability of Nanofiber Webs with Mesh Size of the Deposition Material

“…Electrospun nanofiber webs show controllable high porous character with high interconnectivity [11]. These nano and micropores of the electrospun webs provide good moisture vapor transmission rate, while it maintains resistance to pressured air and resistance to liquid for some type of clothing [12]. On the other hand, several conventional microporous membranes are already used for this purpose.…”

“…Oglakcioglu et al used nanofibers to overcome the low air resistance of conventional weft knitted fabrics to develop windoproof textile surfaces even open structures are in case. Thermoplastic nanofibers laminated between two single jersey fabrics and the effect of the nanofiber amount on the air resistance performance and breathability of the multilayered structure were investigated [12].…”

Designing an Effective and Scalable UV-Protective Cooling Textile with Nanoporous Fibers

“…Fortunately, success stories in mass production of unconventional fiber material or dimensions, such as LifeLabs Design’s use of polyethylene ,, and Teijin Frontier’s use of submicron fibers , for thermal comfort, prove a positive outlook. In addition, concerns around the capability and mechanical durability of nanofibers have been addressed to validate the manufacturability and usability. − …”