Abstract
A novel protective fabric accomplishing with an acceptable level of protective performance and wear comfort has been designed and developed. The protective fabric was tailored by integrating an electrospun PAN–silica aerogel nanofibre membrane with needle-punched viscose nonwoven fabric for simultaneous barrier performance and thermal comfort. The nanofibrous membrane was characterised and evaluated for chemical and thermal protection after sandwiching it within the nonwoven layers. The analysis of PAN–silica aerogel nanofibre revealed that aerogel particles were randomly distributed in the membrane. The nonwoven substrate embedded with the functionalised nanofibre membrane is a lightweight, soft and flexible fabric having versatile protective performance. The newly developed fabric demonstrated satisfactory resistance against radiant heat and liquid chemical penetration. Besides, the improved thermal and moisture vapour transmittance and high evaporative cooling index suggested acceptable thermal comfort of clothing due to the decreased accumulation of perspirations on the material. Moreover, the adequate breathability and moisture management performance indicated diffusion of sweat vapour through the membrane, providing favourable thermal comfort in the clothing-skin microenvironment.
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Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to Ms Shelley MacRae for her support with laboratory instruments.
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The author(s) disclosed no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. M. A. Rahman Bhuiyan is thankful to RMIT University, Australia for scholarship support towards his Ph.D. study.
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MARB contributed to conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, investigation, writing original draft. LW contributed to supervision, experimental design, review and editing. RAS contributed to review and editing. ZAA and TS contributed to experimental investigation and data analysis. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript.
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Bhuiyan, M.A.R., Wang, L., Shanks, R.A. et al. Electrospun polyacrylonitrile–silica aerogel coating on viscose nonwoven fabric for versatile protection and thermal comfort. Cellulose 27, 10501–10517 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-020-03489-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-020-03489-9