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We report on a facile, versatile, and environmentally friendly method to prepare superhydrophobic fabrics by a simple dip-coating method in water-based suspensions and emulsions. All the materials used are fluorine-free and commercially available at a large scale. The method can be easily integrated into standard textile industrial processes and has a strong potential for the mass production of environmentally friendly superwater-repellent fabrics. The produced fabrics show good resistance to machine washing and acidic or alkaline treatments. In addition, it is shown that superhydrophobicity can be quantitatively predicted based on the combination of the roughness of the fabric and of the fiber coating.

Electrical conductive textile coatings with variable amounts of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are presented. Formulations of textile coatings were prepared with up to 15 wt % of CNT, based on the solid weight of the binder. The binders are water based polyacrylate dispersions. The CNTs were mixed into the binder dispersion starting from a commercially available aqueous CNT dispersion that is compatible with the binder dispersion. Coating formulations with variable CNT concentrations were applied on polyester and cotton woven and knitted fabrics by different textile coating techniques: direct coating, transfer coating, and screen printing. The coatings showed increasing electrical conductivity with increasing CNT concentration. The coatings can be regarded to be electrically conductive(sheet resistivity<103 Ohm/sq)starting at 3 wt% CNT. The degree of dispersion of the carbon nanotubes particles inside the coating was visualized by scanning electron microscopy. The CNT particles form honeycomb structured networks in the coatings, proving a high degree of dispersion. This honeycomb structure of CNT particles is forming a conductive network in the coating leading to low resistivity values.

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