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Protective Clothing Using Nanofibers

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Currently many different types of protective garments are used designed to protect the wearer against biological contamination (e.g., bacteria) and mechanical impurities (such as dust, drops of technical fluids, etc.). Their disadvantage is that, thanks to the materials used in the requirement of a high level of protection for the user, a very low permeability even to zero, so that for example, do not allow to remove moisture and heat from the user's body and thus their use is quite uncomfortable, and conversely, in case of the requirement of good breathability and high comfort of application have very little effectiveness in detecting biological and mechanical impurities, which is not sufficient for a number of disciplines.
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Protective clothing using nanofibers
Roman Knizek1, a, Denisa Karhankova2, b, Vladimir bajzik3, c
1, 2, 3Technical University of Liberec, Department of Textile Evalution, Studentská 2,
Liberec 46117, Czech Republic.
aroman.knizek@tul.cz, bdenisa.karhankova@tul.cz, cVladimír.bajzik@tul.cz
Keywords: protective clothing , nanofiber layer , breathable , electrospinning
Abstract: Currently many different types of protective garments are used designed to protect
the wearer against biological contamination (e.g., bacteria) and mechanical impurities (such
as dust, drops of technical fluids, etc.). Their disadvantage is that, thanks to the materials used
in the requirement of a high level of protection for the user, a very low permeability even to
zero, so that for example, do not allow to remove moisture and heat from the user's body and
thus their use is quite uncomfortable, and conversely, in case of the requirement of good
breathability and high comfort of application have very little effectiveness in detecting
biological and mechanical impurities, which is not sufficient for a number of disciplines.
Introduction
Waterproof and breathable fabrics are being developed for a number of years to allow the
human body to provide maximum protection and the highest comfort. The final properties of
these fabrics are given both by all the materials used in the production and of all the
procedures and the refinement. Membrane technology and advanced materials are being
developed to meet the demanding criteria of functional clothing for outdoor activities, but also
for business and industrial clothing. Nanofibers produced by electrospinning are considered to
be very beneficial due to the properties, which include a large specific surface area, small
diameter fibers, filtration properties, low thickness of the layer, high breathability and
lightweight material[1].
Disposable protective clothing is made of a material which comprises a support fabric layer
and the stored layer of polymeric nanofibres, which may, in case of need, be at least partially
covered with a cover of textile or non-textile layer. Supporting fabric layer provides a
protective garment the required mechanical properties keeping protection of the layer of
polymeric nanofibres from mechanical damage, particularly abrasion. Given that forms the
inner surface of the protective garment, which is during the common use of the protective
clothing partially in contact with the user's skin, so it is preferred if it is formed by the textile
of a pleasant touch. Furthermore, it is advantageous if at the same time, thanks to its final
treatment, has suitable hydrophilic properties and is able to remove perspiration from the
body surface of the user. The supporting fabric layer can be formed by any textile, such as any
fabric (including fleece ), knitted fabric, nonwoven fabric, etc., of natural fibers (e.g. cotton,
wool, etc.) or a synthetic fiber (such as polyamide, polyester, etc.) or mixtures of them in
different variants.
Experimental
1. Produstion of disposable protective suit
A layer of polymer nanofibers (refer with fig. 1) then represents a functional layer of
protective clothing, because thanks to the size of their inter-fiber spaces (about 50 nm)
prevents according to the use of protective clothing, penetration of both biological (e.g.
bacteria) and mechanical impurities (dust particles, droplets, technical liquids, etc.) of external
environment to the user's body and conversely. At the same time, however, is through for the
water in a gaseous state, which penetrates it on the principle of diffusion, so it does not
prevent evaporation of sweat trapped in the supporting textile layer and thus contributes to the
high comfort of use of protective cloves.
The suitable material of nanofibers is first of all polyamide 6 [2]. Its surface weight moves
according to the need and considered application in the range from 2 to 10 g/m2. Depending
on intended use of the layer of polymeric nanofibers also a suitable active substance can be
included, such as a biologically active substance for destroying or at least weakening of the
captured microorganisms. catalyst, moisture or odor absorber, etc. A layer of polymeric
nanofibres is prepared by the electrostatic spinning process using a spinning electrode
elongated cylindrically shaped [3].
Fig. 1, Snap of nanofibre membrane
2. Lamination
The polymeric nanofibre layer is connected to the supporting textile layer only by the points
through the binder with the advantage of melting point applied by gravure printing. This
prevents particularly galling and abrasion of the layer of polymer nanofibers in mutual motion
of the layers of protective clothing. If necessary, they are modified to increase their
hydrostatic resistance to avoid the intrusion of water or other fluid in the liquid state or water
or other liquids carried by microorganisms (refer with fig. 2).
Fig. 2, the image of the cut of the 3 layer laminate
3. Results
There is comparison of the commercial protective suit from the reputable company 3M and
the protective suit with the use of nanofiber layer (refer with Table 1).
Tab. 1: Comparison of results of the commercial protective clothing and that with the
nanofiber layer.
commercial protective
clothing
Nano protective Clothing
Permeability
Ret [Pa.m2W -1]
33.1
33.1
Hydrostatic resistance [cm]
44.7
43.6
Maximum pore size [µm]
5.32
1.38
Efficiency detection [%]
100
100
The results show that the clothes using nanofiber layer is more permeable and therefore much
more comfortable for the user. Other parametres of the suits are equal, except the maximum
pore size, which is larger in commercial protective clothing.
Summary
Disposable protective clothing can be created as a one-piece coveralls (according to the
demands with hood or gloves or without), or multi-piece garment. The results show that the
clothes using nanofibers in the terms of comfort for the worker are far more favorable, and
therefore such clothing can lead to higher work productivity.
References
[1] L. Hes, Sluka P.: Introduction to the comfort of textiles, Technical University of
Liberec, Liberec 2005
[2] QUIAN XU et al. electrospun Nylon 6 Nanofibrous Membrane as SPE Absorbent for
the Enrichment and Determinatin od Three Estrogens in Environmental Water
Samples. Chromatographia, 2010, 71, No 5/6, p. 487- 492
[3] TUL: Method of production of nanofibres from polymer solution by electrostatic
spinning and equipment to perform the way CZ Patent 294,274, 2003-2421
... However, thanks to the wide experience gained during the last ten years of extensive research, it is possible to predict, for example, the pore size distribution of electrospun membranes by theoretical modelling [3,4]. As regards their applications, filtration [2][3][4][5][6], technical and protective clothing industry [7], biomedical scaffolding [8], sensors [9,10], and functionalized membranes [11][12][13] are just few examples of the wide range of implementation fields of the nanofibers. ...
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In this paper, electrospun Nylon6 nanofibrous membrane was firstly used as adsorbent for solid membrane extraction (SME). The membrane was arranged as a disk in a home-made device, three estrogens-estradiol (E2), ethinylestradiol (EE2) and estrone (E1) in environmental water were extracted and then determined by liquid chromatography–ultraviolet detector (LC–UV). The important parameters affecting extraction efficiency were completely studied and optimized. The experimental results showed that only 1.5mg Nylon6 nanofibrous membrane could make the maximum sample loading volume up to 50mL and the target analytes were adsorbed effectively. Under the optimized conditions, the limits of detection (LOD) for E2, EE2, E1 were up to 0.05, 0.08, 0.17ngmL−1 respectively and the repeatabilities (RSD%) of intra-membrane and inter-membrane were below 6.0% about spiked samples. The proposed method was subsequently applied to studying water samples from river, rain, pond and tap. Satisfactory spiked recoveries in the range of 85.3–95.9% at 0.25ngmL−1 spiked level for the three estrogens were obtained. A comparison with commercial nylon microporous membrane and octadecylsilica (ODS) cartridges was also carried out. All the results showed that electrospun Nylon6 nanofibrous membrane, as a new adsorbent material has great potential for the enrichment of steroid estrogens in the water samples with satisfactory recovery and repeatability. KeywordsColumn liquid chromatography–ultraviolet detector-Solid membrane extraction-Water analysis-Electrospinning-Nylon6 nanofibrous membrane
Introduction to the comfort of textiles
  • L Hes
  • P Sluka
L. Hes, Sluka P.: Introduction to the comfort of textiles, Technical University of Liberec, Liberec 2005