Issue

Vol. 17 (2025)

Highly Permeable and Liquid-Repellent Textiles with Micro-Nano-Networks for Medical and Health Protection

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40820-025-01716-1
Na Meng
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Fiber Materials, College of Textiles, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People’s Republic of China
Yuen Hu
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Fiber Materials, College of Textiles, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People’s Republic of China
Yufei Zhang
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Fiber Materials, College of Textiles, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People’s Republic of China
Ningbo Cheng
College of Fashion and Design, Donghua University, Shanghai 200051, People’s Republic of China
Yanyan Lin
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Fiber Materials, College of Textiles, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People’s Republic of China
Chengfeng Ding
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Fiber Materials, College of Textiles, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People’s Republic of China
Qingyu Chen
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Fiber Materials, College of Textiles, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People’s Republic of China
Shaoju Fu
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Fiber Materials, College of Textiles, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People’s Republic of China
Zhaoling Li
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Fiber Materials, College of Textiles, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People’s Republic of China
Xianfeng Wang
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Fiber Materials, College of Textiles, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People’s Republic of China
Jianyong Yu
Innovation Center for Textile Science and Technology, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People’s Republic of China
Bin Ding
Innovation Center for Textile Science and Technology, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People’s Republic of China

Corresponding Author: Bin Ding

binding@dhu.edu.cn

Nano-Micro Letters, Vol. 17 (2025), Article Number: 208

Abstract

Current protective clothing often lacks sufficient comfort to ensure efficient performance of healthcare workers. Developing protective textiles with high air and moisture permeability is a potential and effective solution to discomfort of medical protective clothing. However, realizing the facile production of a protective textile that combines safety and comfort remains a challenge. Herein, we report the fabrication of highly permeable protective textiles (HPPT) with micro/nano-networks, using non-solvent induced phase separation synergistically driven by CaCl2 and fluorinated polyurethane, combined with spraying technique. The HPPT demonstrates excellent liquid repellency and comfort, ensuring high safety and a dry microenvironment for the wearer. The textile exhibits not only a high hydrostatic pressure (12.86 kPa) due to its tailored small mean pore size (1.03 μm) and chemical composition, but also demonstrates excellent air permeability (14.24 mm s−1) and moisture permeability (7.92 kg m−2 d−1) owing to the rational combination of small pore size and high porosity (69%). The HPPT offers superior comfort compared to the commercially available protective materials. Additionally, we elucidated a molding mechanism synergistically inducted by diffusion–dissolution-phase separation. This research provides an innovative perspective on enhancing the comfort of medical protective clothing and offers theoretical support for regulating of pore structure during phase separations.


Highlights:
1 Highly permeable protective textiles (HPPT) with micro/nano-networks were fabricated using a non-solvent induced phase separation, synergistically driven by CaCl2 and fluorinated polyurethane, combined with spraying technique.
2 The optimized HPPT exhibited excellent liquid repellency and air-moisture permeability properties due to the integration and cooperative drive of the low surface energy and the pore structure of the connectivity network, which can be used as desirable protective materials.
3 The formation mechanism of micro/nano-network structure was analyzed by molecular dynamics and observed by dynamic phase transition behavior, which numerically combined with theory illustrate the phase transition mechanism of HPPT.

Keywords

Non-solvent induced phase separation Protective textiles Liquidrepellent Air permeability Moisture permeability
Meng, Na, Yuen Hu, Yufei Zhang, Ningbo Cheng, Yanyan Lin, Chengfeng Ding, Qingyu Chen, Shaoju Fu, Zhaoling Li, Xianfeng Wang, Jianyong Yu, and Bin Ding. 2025. “Highly Permeable and Liquid-Repellent Textiles With Micro-Nano-Networks for Medical and Health Protection”. Nano-Micro Letters 17 (April):208. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40820-025-01716-1.
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