Chemical Engineering Insights Essay #2: High Performance Outdoor Clothing Material

            The Cover Story for the October 5, 2009 publication of Chemical & Engineering News was an article entitled, Materials for Adventure. It deals with the manufacture of high-performance materials for the outdoors apparel. This type of apparel has created a very specialized niche in the market, where brand names that the customers associate with are not necessarily the clothing line itself, but rather the material that went into its production. The textile market is an ever-changing and highly competitive place, where breakthroughs in technology are continuously used to create the newest sportswear.

            The article begins by retelling a hiking story of Todd Rutledge, a mountain guide in Alaska, where he decided to take a dangerous route that took 18 hours. This was to set the stage and show just how necessary it is to have high-performance materials in the clothing. These pieces of clothing are much more complex than they have ever been before. They have to be able to keep the person warm while wicking away sweat, they also have to be light and resistant to wear. The search for these materials is what drives the market.

            Unlike the apparel market, which is often based on its appearance, and not its functionality, the active wear market hasn’t been affected by the recession much. The $9 billion a year industry is fueled by customers who are always looking for the next best thing. The brand names of the materials are part of the reason the clothing sells, and it takes innovation to gain a spot in the supply chain of the major clothing lines. One such company that the article talks about is Invista, whose main products are Coolmax® and Thermolite®, both made of polyester and are the base layer closest to the skin. The properties of these materials have been engineered for comfort. Modeled after the insulating hairs of many mammals, Thermolite has a hollow core to keep the warmth in, where Coolmax is a fast-wicking fiber with a cross section designed for air permeability and fast evaporation of moisture due to sweat.

            The article then goes on to explain Invista’s stronger, more durable fiber called Cordura which prevents the clothing or gear from falling apart during extreme use. Cordura is made by extruding and texturing polyester or nylon in a proprietary manner. This fiber is then shipped to a fabric mill to be woven, and then to a facility that will cut and sew it into the desired piece, then all the materials must be sent to yet another facility which will assemble them into the final product. Even though Invista is far down the supply chain and several steps removed from the final product, it is still the name recognized on the tag of the coat or whatever it may be.

            There is a need for all these new materials and the continuous research. The military is very large customer of these companies and it has very strict guidelines. The current polyester shirts that, when subjected to an explosion, can cause third degree burns when the heat generated is greater than its melting point. Invista’s answer was a lightweight nylon and cotton shirt that wouldn’t melt, is quick-drying and has undergone a silver based treatment that would prevent odors.

            The breadth of specialization that the materials have is astounding, some clothes for athletes have sun protection properties on the outside, while wick away sweat and allow for air diffusion on the inside. New material such as active fibers and phase change materials will make a huge impact on the thermal properties of clothing and the outer durability of it as well. The phase change material uses capsules of paraffin wax or some other material that has a melting point between 5°C and 30°C so that when the body starts to cool down the material solidifies and releases heat, alternately, when the body heats up beyond a point, the material melts and absorbs that heat. This should keep the body at an comfortable temperature at all times. The future of the active wear clothing is in the PCM’s and nanomaterial that can change its physical or electrical properties whenever the time arises. Clothing made with shear-thickening fluid can harden on impact which might have military use, would be unnecessarily heavy for the hiker.

            The article then goes on to talk about Jeff Nash, the director for materials development and testing for North Face, and how he also has strict guidelines for any new material. North face has its own testing grounds and will extensively test a new material before implementing it into its clothing line. Many materials that worked great in a lab setting fail when it comes to real life testing. Such is the case for PCM’s and most active fiber materials out there today, mainly with the material not adapting well to periods of high activity and then sudden rest times. Once these problems are fixed it could provide near perfect thermal control.

            The next challenge for the industry is to make their production more “green”, eco-products are gaining a lot of attention these days and by trying to be eco-friendly they will reduce costs significantly. The production of many of these specialized fibers and materials requires the use of highly toxic chemicals that sometimes remain in the environment for thousands of years. The production of “green” materials is a rapidly increasing business and the benefits greatly outweigh the cost in fixing facilities and improving the processes.

            The active wear clothing market relies heavily upon the advances in chemistry and chemical engineering, for they are manipulating the structure and properties on a molecular level to achieve results which can do so many things. It is truly incredible just how much technology is in a high-end sports shirt. Multiple layers of complex materials, woven in a specific pattern, and treated with certain dyes or laminates that alter the way the shirt reacts with the environment all go into the production of a simple shirt. That simple shirt is now light, wicks-away sweat, protects from the sun’s UV rays, and has an antimicrobial property to keep it from stinking even after strenuous exercise while wearing it. It’s a pretty incredible step away from the simple wool, cotton or silk clothes being worn a couple hundred years ago.

            It’s hard to say where the ideal is that the industry is striving for, each sector desires something different and special for that environment. The military needs those types of shirts for use in hot climates, but they can’t melt when exposed to an IED, but the military needs another, much more specialized type of clothing on top of that, body armor. Hikers need clothing and gear that’s light, insulating, waterproof, and moisture-wicking, and a multitude of other constraints. It’s these constraints which keeps the industry evolving, ever searching for a better material to solve all the problems and offer the customer the most comfortable and reliable piece of clothing.