The Most Waterproof Clothing Fabric

Trends N Style

-Staff

By Staff

Wednesday, November 26, 2008, 17:30

The most-water repellent fiber in the world has been created. Developed by the Swiss chemists, the new material is a form of polyester fibers coated with millions of tiny silicone filaments, which they claim is the most water-repellent clothing-appropriate material ever created.

The creation was led by Stefan Seeger, from University of Zurich, who has revealed that that drops of water stay as spherical balls on top of the fabric, and a sheet of the material need only be tilted by two degrees from horizontal for them to roll off like marbles. The water jet goes-off without a trace.

Stefan Seeger attributes the the incredible water resistance of the material to a layer of silicone nanofilaments, which are highly chemically hydrophobic. Furthermore, the effects gets strengthened by the spiky structure of the 40-nanometre-wide filaments, which creates a coating that prevents water droplets from soaking through the coating to the polyester fibres underneath.

"The combination of the hydrophobic surface chemistry and the nanostructure of the coating results in the super-hydrophobic effect. The water comes to rest on the top of the nanofilaments like a fakir sitting on a bed of nails," New Scientist magazine quoted Seeger as saying.

A layer of air is trapped in between the silicone nanofilamnets to create a permanent air layer, known as plastrons, which ensures that water never comes into contact with the polyester fabric. The fiber remains dry even after being submerged in water for two months.

According to Stefan Seeger, preliminary experiments have shown that the plastron layer can reduce drag when moving from water by up to 20 per cent. "This could be very interesting for athletic swimwear applications," he suggests, raising the possibility of future swimsuits that never get wet. The final process to create the new coating involves just one step, in which silicone in gas form condenses onto the fibers to form nanofilaments.

"Although the textiles did show some degradation in the mechanical abrasion tests, their performance was very impressive. The era of self-cleaning clothes may be closer than we think," Steven Bell, director of the Innovative Molecular Materials Group at Queen's University Belfast, said.

The coating can be added to other textiles, including wool, viscose and cotton, although polyester currently gives the best results. The new coating is durable and unlike some water-resistant coatings, it remains more-or-less intact when the fabric is rubbed vigorously, though it could not survive the washing machine cycles.