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Gore-Tex
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Gore-Tex is a waterproof/breathable fabric, and a registered trademark of W.L. Gore & Associates. It was co-invented by Wilbert L. Gore (1912-1986), Rowena Taylor, and Gore's son, Robert W. Gore for use in space. Robert Gore was granted on April 27, 1976, for a porous form of polytetrafluoroethylene with a micro-structure characterized by nodes interconnected by fibrils.
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Encyclopedia
Gore-Tex is a waterproof/breathable fabric, and a registered trademark of W.L. Gore & Associates. It was co-invented by Wilbert L. Gore (1912-1986), Rowena Taylor, and Gore's son, Robert W. Gore for use in space. Robert Gore was granted on April 27, 1976, for a porous form of polytetrafluoroethylene with a micro-structure characterized by nodes interconnected by fibrils. Robert Gore, Rowena Taylor, and Samuel Allen were granted on March 18, 1980 for a "waterproof laminate." For its invention, Robert W. Gore was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006.
Manufacture
Gore-Tex is manufactured from polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). PTFE is made using an emulsion polymerization process with the fluorosurfactant perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA, also known as C8). PFOA has been detected in the parts per billion range in finished PTFE goods and the blood serum of general populations.
Design
Gore-Tex materials are typically based on thermo-mechanically expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and other fluoropolymer products. They are used in a wide variety of applications such as high performance fabrics, medical implants, filter media, insulation for wires and cables, gaskets, and sealants. However, Gore-Tex is best known for its use in protective rain wear.
The simplest sort of rain wear is a two layer sandwich. The outer layer is typically nylon or polyester and provides strength. The inner one is polyurethane, aka PU, and provides water resistance, at the cost of breathability.
Early Gore-Tex fabric replaced the inner layer of PU with a thin, porous fluoropolymer membrane (Teflon) with a polyurethane coating that is bonded to a fabric, usually nylon or polyester. This membrane had about 9 billion pores per square inch (around 1.4 billion pores per square centimeter), each of which is approximately 1/20,000 the size of a water droplet, making it impenetrable to liquid water while still allowing the smaller sized water vapour to pass through.
However it was found that when used in clothing the exposed Teflon membrane layer was easily damaged, as well as being compromised by exposure to the wearer's own sweat. As a result a third layer was added - a coating of PU on the inside of the fabric to protect the membrane. This final design has been criticized as offering greatly reduced performance and more marketing benefits than performance ones.
More recent fabrics such as eVent and Epic avoid the need for this inner PU coating and have been shown to have higher breathability as a result, while still being rainproof.
Care of Goretex fabric
- As dirt - and even human sweat - will block the pores that allow Goretex to breathe, clothing that uses it should be kept clean for performance as well as hygiene and appearance reasons.
- Both wear and cleaning will reduce the performance of Goretex clothes by wearing away the Durable Water Repellent (DWR) treatment on the surface of the fabric. The DWR prevents the face fabric from becoming wet and thus reducing breathability. However the DWR is not responsible for the jacket being waterproof, this is a common misconception as when the face fabric becomes soaked, due to an absence of DWR, there is no breathability and the wearers sweat will cause condensation to form inside the jacket. This has lead people to think that their jacket is leaking however this is not the case, but the DWR is still crucial to the best performance of any membrane based waterproof. It can be reinvigorated by tumble drying your garment, or ironing on a low setting, if this does not work re-proofing the garment with a wash in re-proofer can again add a water repellency to the face fabric
- A guide to maintaining Goretex fabrics is available.
Other uses
Gore-Tex requires that all garments made from their material have taping over the seams, to eliminate leaks. Gore's sister product, Windstopper, is similar to Gore-Tex in being windproof and breathable, but (1) has ability to stretch and (2) is not waterproof.
Gore-Tex is playing an increasing role in the conservation of illuminated manuscripts.
GoreTex is also used to coat long lasting instrument strings, which avoid going dull after extensive use by repelling sweat and grime from the fingers.
A specially-coated form of Gore-Tex material is the key component of a new fuel cell design of hybrid cars which could make the vehicles more reliable and cheaper to build.
Patent Expiration
Now that the main Gore-Tex patent has expired, there are several other products on the market with similar characteristics that use similar technology.
See also
External links
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