More Than Just Beauty, Function As Well Important - Functional Fabrics

Clothing has multiple meanings for human beings. From the perspective of people's psychological needs of dressing, the first is the pursuit of practicality and function, such as warmth and protection. At the same time, it also pursues the psychological needs of beauty and social performance. Clothing is a necessity of human life, and it also acts as an intermediary role between the human body and the environment. Therefore, some people say that clothing is the second skin of the human body, which shows that clothing can be regarded as the extension and expansion of the human body. Clothing is seen as a part of how people face and respond to the external environment. Therefore, the human body, clothing, and environment become an inseparable system.

The external environment is mainly the change of temperature and humidity, and includes the radiation of wind speed, sunlight or other heat sources, all of which make people in a changing environment, and because of this, the role of clothing is very important. If clothing can bring more assistance to the human body, making people's lives more comfortable and safer, the value of clothing will be even higher.

In recent years, the term functional fabric has emerged in major clothing brands and the textile industry, which refers to textiles or clothing products made of new types of textile materials with various functional demands. Generally speaking, textiles are mainly made of cloth, and the cloth is woven from yarn, and the yarn is a collection of fibers, and the fibers are divided into natural fibers and chemical fibers. However, most of the new types of textiles and fabrics are based on chemical fibers and are therefore another category of textiles. Next, the article will share the materials, principles, and appeals used in several common functional clothing and textiles on the market.

With the arrival of summer, there are many products on the market to cool off the heat and relieve fever. Among them, clothing and home accessories with cooling function have become the darlings of the market. As the name suggests, cool-sensing functional clothing allows the wearer to have a cool feeling to improve comfort, and a more correct understanding should be that such textiles have an instant cool feeling on contact. The main process and principle used by general brands is to regard fiber as a carrier, and the selected fiber is mainly chemical fiber, so that when the fiber is made, powder such as jade can be mixed with smooth and straight the yarns and fabrics are designed to make the human body feel cooler in contact with such textiles.

In the testing standards for cool textiles, the Q-max value can be used to determine the cooling effect. This test simulates the maximum instantaneous heat loss from the skin when the human body touches the fabric, that is, the heat flow taken away by the tested fabric within a certain period of time, in watts per square centimeter (Watt/cm2). The more, the larger the value. For yarn, when the Q-max value reaches above 0.14, it can be certified as a cooling yarn.

The transfer of heat is carried out from high temperature to low temperature. If the textiles in contact with the human body have a cool feeling and can prolong the time for thermal equilibrium to be reached, substances with relatively high specific heat can delay the temperature rise caused by heat transfer. Get a longer lasting cooling sensation. In addition, in terms of the thermal conductivity of the material, the material with a higher thermal conductivity will also be conducive to the creation of a cool feeling. However, the two thermal performance characteristics of specific heat and heat conduction are not significantly related to each other. Therefore, selecting a material or a combination of materials with a certain specific heat and high thermal conductivity as a material can be the direction of improving the cooling function of textiles.

In addition, the study also found that the more effective use of cooling fabrics is indoors, mainly because compared with the high temperature of outdoor environment in summer, cooling fabrics will quickly reach thermal equilibrium due to high temperature, so that the coolness characteristics cannot be effectively shown. Therefore, many brands use cool materials to make many home decoration textiles for indoor use, and indoor air conditioners will be able to show the characteristics of contact with cooling fabrics. At the same time, when wearing and using cooling fabrics, the temperature of the air conditioner can also be set slightly higher, which can still make the human body have the same cool feeling. It can be said that the use of cooling fabrics is also beneficial to environmental protection.

Textiles are commodities made from fibers, and the basic classification of textile fibers are natural fibers and chemical fibers, and a large proportion of fibers determine the properties of textiles. Due to the chemical structure of the fibers, natural fibers are hydrophilic fibers, while chemical fibers, especially synthetic fibers, are hydrophobic fibers.

Taking clothing cleaning as an example in daily life, clothing made of pure cotton fiber still takes a considerable amount of time to dry after washing and dehydration, while clothing made of synthetic fibers such as polyester does not absorb water itself, so after washing and dehydration, let it stand for a while in a ventilated place, it will be dry and can be worn again. This is mainly due to the difference in the affinity of clothing fiber materials for water, which is manifested in the characteristics of quick drying. In the quality parameters of textile fibers, there is a value called moisture regain, which can help determine the hydrophilic or hydrophobic properties of fibers. Cotton fibers are about 8.5%, while synthetic fibers polyester is about 0.4%. The difference between the two is dozens of times.

Extending the concept of quick-drying clothing, sweat-wicking clothing is suitable for sports situations where you sweat a lot. First of all, imagine wearing pure cotton clothing to engage in a lot of perspiration sports such as basketball or running. Since cotton fiber is a hydrophilic fiber, it will quickly and firmly absorb sweat and sweat into the fiber structure, which is difficult to eliminate, making the wearer's clothing sticky and sticky. A snug fit. At the same time, the cotton fiber will expand after absorbing water, which will increase the tightness of the clothing yarn and hinder the elimination of sweat, that is, the moisture permeability effect will be reduced, resulting in an increase in the sultry feeling.

Therefore, most of the materials of sweat-wicking clothes are made of polyester fibers, which mainly pass through the capillary phenomenon created by the fine fibers. In addition, such synthetic fibers themselves do not absorb water, which can more effectively carry sweat away from the skin to the on the outside of the garment, the flowing air dries the garment, which can help the wearer to keep fresh and comfortable during and after exercise. In order to make the clothing more effective in perspiration, the cross-section of the synthetic fiber can be shaped, which can create more contact area with sweat and better capillary phenomenon to improve the perspiration effect.

Summer is hot with cool clothes, but what about winter? Heating clothes can be said to be one of the most popular items in cold winter. Different from passive thermal insulation and thermal insulation clothing, heating clothes can actively provide heat to help the body maintain body temperature and create a sense of warmth. Taking wool clothing as an example, it usually gives the impression of warmth and heat preservation. This is mainly because the wool fiber type has a natural curling shape, so that the yarn made of wool fiber and the interior of the clothing can be cut into many tiny spaces, allowing air can be filled with it. Air is an excellent thermal insulator, and the human body generates heat, so a layer of retained hot air is formed, which isolates the cold air from the outside to obtain a warm effect. Usually wearing a sweater will add a windbreaker, mainly to prevent the cold wind from blowing directly into the sweater and destroy the original stagnant warm air system. The above-mentioned thermal insulation mechanism is mainly passive thermal insulation measures based on air insulation. Therefore, there are also products that use hollow fiber materials to make thermal clothing.

The heating clothes can actively emit heat to help maintain body temperature. The main principle is the use of high-efficiency moisture-absorbing heating fibers. The principle of hygroscopic heating fiber can be understood from the reverse of releasing moisture and absorbing heat. For example, to boil water is to boil the water through heating. Even in the cold winter, people continue to dissipate heat and sweat, thereby creating heat. The production of hygroscopic heating clothing is usually based on thermal fiber material, and a certain amount of hygroscopic heating fiber is added to create a warm and dry microclimate environment between the human body and the clothing, and obtain better cold resistance and warmth retention effect.

Antibacterial and deodorant are often found in various types of daily commodities. The reason why antibacterial and deodorant are often mentioned together is that odor is usually produced by the presence of bacteria, so if it can be effectively antibacterial, the odor can be reduced. The fibers in the antibacterial clothing are usually added with antibacterial ingredients, mixed into the interior and surface of the fibers, or later processed to give the fabric antibacterial properties, so that the textile can effectively inhibit the growth of bacteria caused by human sweat and skin metabolites.

The main types of antibacterial agents include inorganic and organic types. The inorganic series of antibacterial agents mainly contain silver ions and have good antibacterial effect, which is the current mainstream antibacterial technology. Organic type antibacterial agents can be divided into two categories: synthetic and natural. The natural antibacterial material is mainly made of a substance called chitosan, which is obtained after deacetylation of chitin and has a strong reactive amine group (-NH2, Figure 1), in addition to its antibacterial and deodorizing properties, it has good biocompatibility and no toxic side effects, and can be used in medical textiles. The main antibacterial principle of the above materials is that the antibacterial substance has a positive charge, and when it contacts with bacteria, it destroys the original metabolism, composition and state of bacterial cells, resulting in the death of bacteria.

The aforementioned textiles with special functions can be collectively referred to as functional fabrics. In addition, related products on the market also include types such as anti-ultraviolet, far-infrared release, and moisture-permeable and waterproof. The main appeal is to enable people to obtain better comfort, health care and protection in wearing and using. In addition, high-performance textiles and smart textiles are also the main directions for the development of new textiles. The development and progress of new clothing and textiles are continuous, all-encompassing, combined with cross-disciplinary knowledge and technology applications, and aesthetics and creativity are integrated into design and development, creating products with practical and aesthetic value, and continue to give consumers better wearing experience and surprise.