Industry-of-art

Dirty-free lotus cloth and antimicrobial chitosan

Released date: 2010-11-18 Hits: 803

The metal oxide attached to the cloth can break down smells.

In addition to breathing theory, the nature world provides many examples of reference, from which scientists can explore numerous textile materials. Lotus leaf is definitely the best example of waterproof materials. Water droplets can roll a bead on the surface of lotus leaves without any leakage because of the uneven, nano / micron-level ripple structure on the lotus leaf surface. These structures are full of air between the leaf and water drops so that water molecules can not be attached to the leaf surface. Similarly, the new generation of waterproof fabric will be coated with the nano-structure. Just think you and your boyfriend / girlfriend is at the "meeting the parents Day" dinner, when you knocked over a glass of red wine by accident, you must hope that this little invention will be applied as soon as possible.

In recent years, scientists have successfully extracted "crab shell element", which is actually some kind of chitosan, from the marine crustacean. Although it cannot be directly used for textiles, but can add antibacterial function into clothes. Scientists make shells into nano-structure materials and add them in fabrics. Due to the larger surface area than flat and the increased contact area with the bacteria, the effectiveness of sterilization is further enhanced. Applications include Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae and so on.

Nanostructured coatings breaking down smells.

 

After coating the fabrics with a nanostructured metal oxide layer, when the UV exposed to the cloth, metal oxide will transfer UV energy for the decomposition of bacteria, smoke and all kinds of smells so that clothes can be self-cleaned. On the other side, by adding metal oxide, those fabrics have changed into anti-UV fabrics. Wearing clothes made of ordinary fabric, UV light can still penetrate and contact our body. However, after adding metal oxide, clothes can absorb a lot of UV to protect our skin.

All the technology above like waterproof, anti-bacterial, self-cleaning, and anti-UV are based on adding nano-layer on the textile surface. The layer is so thin that the breathing effect and feel are not affected. During production, we can deal with the fabrics with existing processing equipments and make costs under control.

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