THE use of coated textiles for protective clothing, shelters, covers, liquid containers, etc., dates back to antiquity. Historically, the earliest recorded use of a coated textile was by the natives of Central and South America, who applied latex to a fabric to render it waterproof. Other materials such as tar, rosin, and wax emulsions have been used over the years to prepare water-resistant fabrics. Due to their vastly superior properties, rubber and other polymeric materials have become the preferred coatings. Today, coated fabrics are essentially polymer-coated textiles. Advances in polymer and textile technologies have led to phenomenal growth in the application of coated fabrics for many diverse end uses. Coated fabrics find an important place among technical textiles and are one of the most important technological processes in modern industry.

Coated textiles are made impermeable to fluids by two processes, coating and laminating. Coating is the process of applying a viscous liquid (fluid) or formulated compound on a textile substrate. Lamination consists of bonding a preprepared polymer film or membrane with one or more textile substrates using adhesives, heat, or pressure. Fibrous materials are also used for reinforcing polymeric materials to form composites for use in tires, conveyor belts, hoses, etc. The scope of this book has been restricted to coated and laminated coated textiles and does not address polymer fiber composites.

Several methods of production are used to manufacture a wide range of coated textiles or laminated fabrics. Broadly, they are spread coating, dip coating, melt coating, and lamination. They not only differ in the processing equipment used, but also in the form of polymeric materials used. Thus, paste or solutions are required for spread coating; solutions are required for dip coating; and solid polymers such as powders, granules, and films are required for melt coating and lamination. The basic stages involved in these processes include feeding the textile material from rolls under tension to a coating or laminating zone, passing the coated textiles through an oven to volatilize the solvents and cure/gel the coating, cooling the fabric, and subsequently winding it up into rolls.

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