New Waterproof Fabric Developed that Sucks Sweat, Remains Dry and Breathable

A team of bioengineers at the University of California, Davis, has developed a new waterproof fabric that sucks sweat and remains completely dry and breathable. The fabric is a result of the latest application of microfluid technology, according to a news release.

According to Tingrui Pan, professor of biomedical engineering, the new fabric works like human skin. It forms surplus sweat into droplets that drain away by themselves. Pan, along with his colleagues, focuses on making 'lab on a chip' devices that use small minute paths to manipulate fluids. They build this for applications such as medical diagnostic tests.

The new textile microfluidic platform was developed by graduate students Jia Jiang and Siyuan Xing with the help of hydrophilic threads that were stitched into an extremely-water repellent fabric. Researchers created patterns of thread that sucked in water droplets from one end of the fabric and pushed them along the threads and finally ejected them from the other side.

"We intentionally did not use any fancy microfabrication techniques so it is compatible with the textile manufacturing process and very easy to scale up," Xing, lead graduate student of the project, said in a press statement.

Even the water-repellent properties of the surrounding fabric help to drive water down the channels. What makes it different from conventional fabric is that the water-pumping effect continues to function even when the water-conducting fibers are completely saturated. The place where the sweat is collected and the area where it is drained away on the outside can be controlled by the researchers by changing the pattern of the water-conducting fibers and the way they are stitched on each side of the fabric.

The details of the research were published recently in the journal Lab on a Chip.