Printing of reactive silicones for surface modification of textile material

Abstract

For outdoor sports, waterproof breathable materials are widely used to provide protection from environmental factors like rain and wind. The most important techniques to achieve excellent performance use perfluorinated organic substances, which must be replaced in the near future due to health concerns and their environmental persistency. Printing of textile materials with reactive silicone pastes could be an alternative to introduce water repellency without fluorocarbon finishing. In this work, production of barrier textiles through one-step silicon printing was studied, using a two-component paste with long pot life and a thermal fixation step. Three different knitted fabrics made from micromodal, polyamide/elastin, and cotton/polyester were used as substrates for the printing. The achieved hydrophobic modification of the fabric was analyzed by determination of water shedding angle, water resistance, water retention values, moisture content, air permeability, tensile properties, and infrared spectroscopy. The results indicate several areas of technical application for the modified fabric, such as barrier textiles with permeability control, localized modification of mechanical properties of fabric and garment.

In Vitro Endothelialization of Surface-Integrated Nanofiber Networks for Stretchable Blood Interfaces

“…Finally, these results suggest that partial embedding of electrospun fibers into silicone is a straightforward concept for fabrication of tailored composite (bio-)­materials to be applied within the field of tissue engineering, for textile applications, elastic sensors, or others, wherein functional membranes need mechanical support of a highly flexible component.…”

“…However, additional long-term studies will be necessary to assess the performance of these surfaces within a PVAD environment applied in large animal trials and to further mimic the native blood vessel architecture, smooth muscle cells could be encapsulated within the electrospun membrane, as described previously. 68 Finally, these results suggest that partial embedding of electrospun fibers into silicone is a straightforward concept for fabrication of tailored composite (bio-)materials to be applied within the field of tissue engineering, for textile applications, 69 elastic sensors, 70 or others, wherein functional membranes need mechanical support of a highly flexible component.…”