Laminated breathable fabrics designed with nanofiber membranes

Abstract

Breathable fabrics find applications in active sportswear, protective clothing, survival clothing, outdoor clothing, and especially military clothing due to their comfortable structures. Tents, cargo transport packaging, or sleeping bags are some other application areas. There are many different approaches to designing breathable fabrics according to the end-use area, such as using microfibers, creating microporous polymer coating-based membranes, laminated films, or finally coating solid polymer films on the fabric. Laminating nanofiber membranes is a new approach for breathable fabrics. Nanofiber membranes show the ability to control airflow through the fabric without significantly affecting comfort properties such as thermal insulation or water vapor transmission. These materials can be used for a whole garment, such as jackets or trousers, or they can only be used to reduce air permeability for a certain part of a garment. This review explains the production and alternatives of breathable laminated fabrics and compares them with fabric design with novel nanofiber membranes. © 2024 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.