TEXTILES.ORG
Teijin Fibers Ltd., the core company of the Teijin Group’s polyester fibers business, announced today that it has developed a new stain-resistant polyester fabric that offers, for the first time, both water absorption to eliminate stickiness and oil repellency to resist oil-based soiling.
Polyester is essentially hydrophobic, so it neither absorbs water nor repels oil-based grime. Existing water-repellent and oil-repellent materials present problems, such as loss of breathability and texture, because the coating is applied only to the top surface of the fabric, rather than each individual fiber.
The new material, planned to be marketed as a comfortable, stain-resistant fabric for all seasons, will be used for sportswear, uniforms and fashionable clothing such as blouses, cut and sewn clothing, and slacks that require both oil repellency and sweat absorption. Teijin Fibers will begin selling the new fabric in time for spring and summer 2012 sportswear and apparel selling.
The innovative new material also offers an unprecedentedly soft texture, because its special new coating is formed on each individual fiber, rather than the fabric as a unit. The key to the breakthrough was Teijin Fibers’ leveraging of proprietary fiber processing and nanotechnologies to succeed in covering the fiber surface with a 100-nanometer coating that consists of separate hydrophilic and oil-repellent layers. When sweat or other moisture contacts the fabric, water content is selectively absorbed and quickly spread to the hydrophilic layer, but oil is repelled and can be easily washed off later.