Design of functional textile coatings via non-conventional electrofluidodynamic processes.

HYPOTHESIS: In the last years, several cost-effective technologies have been investigated to functionalize textile substrates for large scale applications and industrial production. However, several limitations of currently used technologies still restrict the capability to form functional coatings finely controlling the textile surface properties and topographic structure of the coatings at sub-micrometric scale.

EXPERIMENTS: Herein, we introduced a new non-conventional electrofluidodynamic technology - based on the use of electrostatic forces to polymer/composite solutions - for the application onto textile fabrics of functional coatings. With respect to particle/fibrous coatings usually applied through conventional electrospraying/electrospinning processes, the proposed approach is able to realize homogeneous and continuous coatings by a one-step process, imparting tailored functionalities to the textiles surfaces through the use of customized experimental setups.

FINDINGS: We proved that this process can be successfully used to realize functional coatings based on a bioderived polymer, namely polylactic acid (PLA), on commercial woven polyamide (PA) fabrics. In addition, due to the usage of graphene derivatives or photochromic dyes in combination with PLA, the applied coatings are able to confer peculiar functionalities (i.e., electrical conductivity, photochromic properties, etc.) to polyamide fabrics, as proved by SEM, conductivity and UV irradiation measurements, for innovative applications in smart textiles, e-health and wearable electronics.