Coated textiles may be subject to a number of external pressures and abrasive elements during everyday use. For this reason, a number of coatings have been developed to reduce the wear of textile materials. Polymer coatings, in particular, offer enhanced protection on the surface of textile products while still allowing for water evaporation through the fabric—a process that is often hindered by other coating materials. Here are the 10 primary benefits of polymer textile coatings:

1. Abrasion Resistance

Abrasion resistance is measured by rubbing flat materials against the fabric in question to determine the rate at which the fabric erodes. Polymer coatings create a layer on top of the textile fabric to add increased resistance to abrasion. It is particularly useful for materials that experience a great deal of friction, such as personal protective equipment (PPE), power transmission belts, backpacks, footwear, and synthetic leather products.

2. Adhesive Qualities

Textile fabrics can be coated with polymers to increase their adhesion and tack to other surfaces or polymers. For this reason, rubber polymer coatings are ideal for use in high-performance vehicle tires, power transmission belts, and seals and gaskets.

3. Air-Holding Capabilities

Polymer-coated textiles can incorporate resistance benefits to stop items like air or water from passing through the material. This makes them particularly useful in products that need to be capable of holding air, this would include items such as SCUBA buoyancy compensators, life vests, airlift bladders, blood pressure cuffs, pressure infusor bags, aerostates, etc.

4. Antimicrobial Properties

Polymers such as chitosan—a naturally occurring biopolymer derived sea creatures—display measurable antibacterial activity, sometimes with a reduction of up to 99%. Since surfaces coated with these materials remain clean and virtually free of bacteria, they are particularly useful in medical textiles, such as bandages, blood pressure cuffs, braces and prosthetics.

5. Flame Resistance

Polymer coatings may be combined with flame-resistant agents to create highly flame-resistant materials, which make them important in the manufacture of protective clothing for firefighters, fabric used in vehicles and airplanes, thermal ablatives for rockets, and safety curtains and carpeting.

6. Durability

Polymer coatings make textiles more sturdy and corrosion-resistant, significantly extending the service life of finished products ranging from household goods like towels and sheets to outdoor camping equipment and outerwear.

7. Noise Abatement

Coated textiles in polymer blends possess sound reduction properties. When sound waves are directed toward the materials, they are absorbed due to its porous nature, thereby preventing the movement of sound. This can be particularly useful in soundproofing layers in automotive, aerospace, and industrial applications.

8. Thermal Resistance

Materials coated with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) or perfluoroalkoxy alkane (PFA) blends are able to withstand temperatures of up to 500° F. Like flame-resistant coatings, these polymer-coated textiles are particularly useful for safety products, automotive and aerospace fabrics, and firefighting apparel.

9. Waterproofing

Polymer coatings provide an excellent means for waterproofing textiles. Their hydrophobic nature ensures that materials coated in certain polymer blends easily repel water and other liquids.

10. Weldability

Polymer coatings may need to be bonded through the use of adhesives, RF, ultrasonic or hot air weldable. These types of fabrics are ideal where a durable sealed seam is required and normally sewn seams create unwanted holes in the surface. These weldable coated textiles are ideal for items such as weatherproof outerwear, inflatable vests, rafts, medical devices, and recreational BC vests.

This article comes from textech edit released

What are coated fabrics, coated textiles? What are the development and future trend of coated textiles? Only by understanding coated textiles can we better guide the future development of coated textiles.

What is coated textile? Coated textile is a material treated by special process (through the post-treatment technology of cloth, belt, pipe, felt and grid), which makes the textile surface form a uniform coating compound. The coated fabric is a kind of coated textile, which consists of two or more layers of material, at least one layer is fabric and the other layer is completely continuous polymer coating.

However, this explanation is professional and unfamiliar, the average person may not think of which of the life is coated textiles. When you are on the highway, you will see the big cloth mantle that covers the goods on the roaring van next to you, and you will cover your car with a raincoat like the clothes of the car on a rainy day. Including our own rain gear, as well as most of the breathable sneakers upper and so on, these are coated textiles. The main common coated textiles are: PVC coated fabric, PTFE coated fabrics, PU coated fabric, Teflon coated fabric, silicone-coated fabrics, vinyl coated fabrics and so on. Coated textiles are widely used: not only can make waterproof clothing, tents, shoes and socks, curtains and other daily necessities; but also can be used in transportation, navigation, various machine accessories, and other industrial fields.

This article comes from testextextile edit released

The use of coated fabrics is common in industry, in transmission belts, conveyor belts or barrier materials.

Equally, in the field of health, coated fabrics are used as barrier materials, implants, incontinence products, hospital equipment and hygiene products.

Coated textiles are common in gloves, cut resistant materials, clothing for clean rooms, fire, bad weather or NBC protection clothing, high visibility clothing, etc.

They also have their applications in the sports (shoes, anoraks, etc.) and leisure sectors (haversacks, camping tents, sleeping bags, etc.)

The possible uses of coated textiles are constantly growing, especially the breathable and waterproofing textiles. With this increase, there is a notable variation in the materials employed. From two years ago a progressive decrease in PVC coating (except for truck canvas) and an increase of polyurethane coatings are noticed. On the other hand, an increase is foreseen in coated textiles being used in textile architecture (PES/PVC or glass/PTFE), airbags, reflectors or posters and publicity flags amongst others.

This article comes from FF edit released

The formulation of a coated textile is complicated, and it can contain a wide range of chemicals depending on the nature of the polymer, the additives for the specific end use and the type of coating machinery used for its application.

For our customers, we achieve exceptionally high levels of quality. Operating our in-house mixing, coated textile and testing facilities to ISO 9001 quality standards means that we manufacture within tight tolerances with consistent and reproducible results.

Where customers require bespoke characteristics, we can customise coating compounds with additives which impart the following added properties to the resulting coated fabrics.

• Fire retardant
• Anti-static
• Resistance to UV degradation
• Water repellant

Food grade fabric can also be developed on specific request from customers if required.

This article comes from arville edit released