Innovative Fabric Technology Or Completely Changing Outdoor Clothing

According to foreign media reports, scientists have recently invented a new way to deal with skiers falling down on the slopes and facing the cold and humid. That's a lighter, softer and more comfortable one. New jacket material 。 A small company called Voormi in Colorado, USA, is selling a technology that can produce waterproof and breathable materials using monolayer materials. It may be the major development of outdoor clothing since the advent of the first GORE-TEX jacket (Gore Tes) jacket with waterproof breathable membrane in 1970s.

Voormi released the latest technology at the snow sports industry association product exhibition in late last month, which supposedly replaced the hard and heavy windbreaker and the traditional hierarchical system supporting clothing with multiple customization features waterproofing, isolation or windproof. The release of this technology has caused a great stir in the outdoor clothing market of US $1 billion 500 million annually.

"Our point of view is Waterproof and breathable Translated into a monolayer fabrication process, "said marketing director Tim Smith." TimmSmith "So this is equivalent to another 1978 revolution. We pressed the restart button."

Let's start with a review of history: in 1969, William Gore (WilliamGore) and Bob Gore (BobGore) invented GORE-TEX by using polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) as the basic material. When rapidly stretched into a thin film, PTFE can become a thin film whose pores are smaller than those of water droplets but larger than those of water molecules. Therefore, liquid water, such as rain or snow, can not penetrate this material, but the moisture generated by human body, such as sweating, can penetrate. GORE-TEX is not the only film that exists in the market. When the patent expired in 1997, a series of clothing companies put forward other alternatives.

Waterproof or windproof membrane is only one of the core of many outdoor clothing, and the latest technology of Voormi will still use them. The only difference is the application of thin film. Unlike traditional waterproof breathable fabrics, it requires two layers of material - the latest technology of Voormi is a single layer fabric with a film core, which is lighter, more flexible and more versatile.

The membrane itself is very fragile. textile company The film will be laminated to the outer fabric to create a two layer (2L) fabric, then cut and stitched into the jacket or trousers or sleeping bag. Most of the time, more layers of padding should be added to improve durability. This liner is usually polyester warp knitted fabric, which is the material used by women's bra.

These constitute the functional part of clothing, but because of the fabric layer, laminated adhesive and the waterproof adhesive tape needed to cover the hole, the entire clothing is very heavy. And these layers will affect the permeability of the membrane, thereby reducing its efficacy.

The latest technology of Voormi completely put aside the lamination. "We are not gluing the film to the cloth, but we put the membrane in the braiding machine and weave it on the membrane, so we get the single layer fabric produced in the core of the process." Smith explained. "This is a completely new platform."