Robust sandwich micro-structure coating layer for wear-resistant conductive polyester fabrics

Abstract Wear-resistant performance is a critical property of the surface coated functional fabric during the cyclical abrasion of wearing procedure. However, inorganic nano-materials cannot easily graft onto the hydrophobic fabric substrate with weak interface interaction resulting in the unsatisfactory washing and wearing performance. Herein, the wear-resistant conductive polyester fabric with polyurethane - silver - polyurethane (PU-Ag-PU) sandwich micro-structure decoration was successfully fabricated via a facile spray coating route of water soluble polyurethane (WPU) and the in-situ synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). The obtained fabric exhibits excellent conductivity with surface resistance of 4.95 Ω/sq. which is far below than the case without sandwich micro-structure (1.32 × 104 Ω/sq) because of the rearrangement and quantum tunneling effect of AgNPs in the nanocomposite coating layer. More importantly, the wear resistance of the modified fabric has been greatly enhanced owing to the two-phase structure of polyurethane and sandwich micro-structure of coating. The weight loss of the sandwich micro-structure coated fabric is only 1.28% while it is 5.58% of the case without PU outer coating layer. Meanwhile, surface resistance of the sandwich fabric is merely increased an order of magnitude even after 1500 times of abrasion cycle test, showing a qualitative enhancement compared with that of the common structure (increased seven orders of magnitude). In short, the designed sandwich micro-structure significantly enhanced the electrical conductivity and wear-resistance of silver decorated fabric. The strategy of sandwich micro-structure design in this paper has indicated a potential way for the durable wear-resistant functional fabrics.