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Water-Borne Polyurethane Based Composites and Their Applications in Functional Textile Coatings
Summary
This review covers water-borne polyurethane composites and their applications in textile coatings, including how different reinforcing materials affect performance. Polyurethane coatings on textiles are a significant but often overlooked source of microplastic fibers released into waterways during washing.
Polyurethanes have gained great attention owing to their biocompatibility, biodegradability, excellent mechanical strength, tailorable chemical, and physical forms in the industrial field in recent years. While the performance properties of the polyurethane material can be improved with the composite structure formed by reinforcing different types of nano particles (3D fillers, nanofibers, nanotubes, and plate-like filler) into polyurethanes, it can also pave the way for different application areas. Fillers can be used to modify the crystallinity, molecular arrangement, crosslinking, and functional chemical groups of the water-based polyurethane (WPU) based composite structure. Polymer nanocomposite coatings are a subject of study that requires the engineering of composite materials that combine the advantages of different components. In this study, researches and recent developments in the design and preparation of WPU-based composite coatings that can be used in the development of functional textiles and positive impact of WPUs composites on the future prospects of this field are presented. While this study enables researchers to gain awareness of the potential applications of functional textiles designed with WPU composite coatings, it can encourage researchers for new research in terms of diversifying the application forms with different materials.
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