New Material: Application Of Hydrogel Printing Fabric

 

Hydrogel is a kind of very hydrophilic three-dimensional network structure gel. It swells rapidly in water and can keep a large volume of water in this swelling state.

Due to the existence of crosslinking network, hydrogels can swell and retain a large amount of water. The amount of water absorbed is closely related to the degree of crosslinking. The higher the degree of crosslinking, the lower the water absorption. This characteristic is very similar to a kind of soft tissue. The water content in hydrogels can be as low as a few percent or as high as 99 percent. The aggregation state of gel is neither a complete solid nor a complete liquid. The behavior of solid is that it can maintain a certain shape and volume under certain conditions, and the behavior of liquid is that the solute can diffuse or permeate through the hydrogel.  

The hydrogel has good antibacterial properties in medical cotton fabric dressing

Hydrogel dressing as a temporary substitute for the skin barrier function of medical textiles is indispensable in the field of wound treatment. Although the traditional textile dressings are cheap and widely used, there are obvious defects such as no effective anti infection function, dryness and easy adhesion to the wound, which is not conducive to the anti infection of the wound and the absorption of exudate In order to solve this problem, the cotton fabric was grafted with N, N-dimethyl-N - (3 - (trimethoxysilyl) propyl) dodecane-1-amine chloride (CDMA) to endow the cotton fabric with antibacterial properties. Then, the cotton fabric was impregnated with sodium acrylate / modified polyhexamethylene guanidine hydrochloride (m-phmg) solution, and then the hydrogel based cotton fabric dressing was prepared The surface morphology, composition, mechanical properties, liquid absorption and antibacterial properties of the fabrics before and after impregnation were tested. The results showed that the cotton fabric dressing had good liquid absorption effect and excellent antibacterial properties.

Using durian shell as raw material to develop a kind of hydrogel

Scientists from Nanyang Polytechnic University of Singapore have spent two years developing a kind of hydrogel tape using durian shell as raw material. In addition to low production cost, this adhesive tape can also be biodegraded, non-toxic and harmless, and is more environmentally friendly than traditional adhesive tape.

In 2017, Singapore imported 14300 tons of durian, about 10 million durian, but only about one third of each durian was edible, and the remaining shell had to be incinerated, which increased the environmental burden. In order to utilize the waste, the food scientists of Nanyang University of technology first powdered durian shell to extract high-quality fiber, mixed the high-quality fiber with glycerol to produce soft gel, and then added organic molecules produced by baker's yeast to improve the antibacterial function of the gel.  

40 grams of pure fiber can be extracted from 2 kg durian shell, which is enough to make 1600 pieces of adhesive tape with length of 2 cm and width of 1 cm. Experiments on animal skin showed that the antibacterial hydrogel cloth made from durian shell could provide up to 48 hours of antibacterial protection, the researchers said. Organic hydrogels can also transmit electrical signals to make flexible technology accessories such as watch bands that can measure heart rate.

      The hydrogel printing fabric includes a fabric substrate and a hydrogel printing layer compounded on the fabric substrate, and the hydrogel printing layer has a discontinuous shape; The size is formed by printing process, and the size includes gelling powder, printing glue, thickener and cool feeling material; The content of hydrophilic group is 2030wt%. The fabric contains hydrogel material, which makes the body have no greasy feeling, no soaking feeling, and has heat dissipation function The fabric also contains cool feeling materials, which can work together under the changing environment It can provide lasting cooling effect and reduce the amount of sweating

Application of polymer hydrogels in the field of intelligent textiles

Polymer hydrogel is a kind of crosslinked polymer which can produce sensitive response to small physical and chemical stimuli, such as temperature, pH, ionic strength, light, pressure, electric field, chemical substances and so on The introduction of polymer hydrogel into the field of intelligent textile development and design not only makes up for the defect of low mechanical strength of gel material, but also makes the fabric have excellent performance

The examples of polymer hydrogel materials in the development of intelligent temperature regulating textiles, intelligent waterproof and moisture permeable textiles, intelligent antibacterial textiles, intelligent cold storage textiles, intelligent medical dressings and so on, are widely used in the field of intelligent textiles.