PFAS (poly- and perfluoroalkyl compounds) have been used for a range of applications in various industries since the 1970s, as they can be water and oil repellent. They are familiar from the household (frying pans) or in technical textiles (functional and safety clothing, medical products, for impregnation). Due to their poor degradability and harmful accumulation in humans and the environment, they are also known as "eternal chemicals". Some of them are now banned.
The Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) are currently working with Swiss textile companies as part of an Innosuisse project to develop alternatives to PFAS in order to produce water-repellent fibres. They are using highly cross-linked siloxanes for this purpose. These are atomized and activated with a reactive gas. As a result, the siloxanes retain their functional properties and enclose the textile fibers in a 30 nm water-repellent coating. As a result, all fibre windings are reached for functionalization, which is not necessarily the case with wet-chemical processes. The threads can then be processed into clothing or water-repellent technical textiles. In initial tests, the fibers absorbed less water, dried faster and remained water-repellent even when stretched, e.g. by washing.
The next step is to scale up the process. The Swiss textile companies Lothos KLG, beag Bäumlin, Ernst KG and AG Cilander are already involved in this project and it is expected to have great economic potential.
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