Toray Industries, Inc. (headquarters: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; President: Akihiro Nikkaku; hereinafter referred to as "Toray") today announced that it has succeeded in developing an environmentally friendly water repellent finish technology, which does not require fluorinated compounds and enables high water repellent performance and durability.
Toray will apply this new non-fluorine water repellent agent in moisture permeable waterproof materials for sportswear that require high water repellent performance and competitive swimsuit as well as in apparel that require high sense, superior texture and high water repellent performance, and will start offering such products from fiscal year 2016 one after another.
Fluorinated compounds are used in the processing of textile products to add various functionalities such as oil-repellency and soil-guard property and are mostly used for water repellent finish. However, the fluorine-based water repellent agents used for general processing contains perfluorooctanoic acid* (PFOA), an impure substance which is hard to break down due to its stable chemical structure, and there have been concerns about the negative impact of its accumulation in the body and the residuals in external environment. Taking this into consideration, primarily the U.S. and European countries among many others are tightening their restrictions on fluorine-based water repellent agents and chemicals manufacturers have been working on the development of replacement technologies. Moreover, environmental groups in the U.S. and Europe are strongly against the use of fluorine-based water repellent agents for clothing, and the textile industry also has been advancing replacement with non-fluorine-based water repellent agents.
Nevertheless, the processing with non-fluorine-based water repellent agents that have been developed so far are inferior in initial water repellent performance and water repellent durability and for this reason it was necessary to coat the fiber surface of textile with a large amount of water repellent agents, making it harder to maintain the textile’s original texture and physical properties. On this account, sports apparel manufacturers with high awareness for environmental protection in the U.S. and Europe have taken an initiative in seeking development of innovative high performance materials that enable both high water repellent performance and excellent texture and physical properties of the textiles.
The technology which Toray developed is to coat the fiber with the non-fluorine-based water repellent agent it developed, employing its proprietary polymer blending technology by letting each fiber adsorpting the agent. The company succeeded in improving the agent’s property to be adsorbed to the surface of textile during the water repelling processing and even configurational alignment by controlling the affinity between the agent and textile by combining special function processing technologies such as Toray’s nanoscale processing technology. Coating each fiber with the agent enables the function of the agent to evolve effectively, achieving water repellent functionality and durability of the level similar to conventional water repellent agents. This processing technology achieves sufficient water repellent functiontality with a small amount of agent and therefore it is without damaging the handle and physical properties of the textiles itself after the water repelling finish.
Under the medium-term management program Project AP-G 2016 which the company is currently implementing, Toray is promoting the Green Innovation Business Expansion (GR) Project to contribute to solving environmental problems and resource and energy issues.
The water repelling technology it developed this time plays the central role in promoting GR Project in the fiber and textile business. It is at the same time an important technology for the company to expand its business globally.
Toray will continue to develop innovative materials as a base material manufacturer and strive to realize its corporate philosophy of "Contributing to society through the creation of new value with innovative ideas, technologies and products."
The following is the overview of the technology Toray developed this time.
