Science Daily June 29, 2018
Conventional water-repellent coatings have been shown to persist in the environment and accumulate in our bodies. Researchers at MIT have developed a process that allows for iCVD deposition of durable, conformal short fluorinated polymers stabilized with a crosslinking agent resulting in high hydrophobicity, low liquid adhesion while maintaining initial substrate breathability. To further enhance the dynamic water repellency performance, the chemical treatment is combined with physical texturing making this combined approach a suitable candidate to meet the industrial needs. The process works on different kinds of materials including cotton, nylon, linen and paper, opening a variety of potential applications. The system has been tested on different types of fabric with different weave patterns. They have demonstrated repeated washings with no degradation of the coatings, they passed severe abrasion tests with no damage to the coatings… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Repellency of different liquids on polyester fabric coated with H1F7Ma-co-DVB. Credit: Varanasi and Gleason research groups