DEVELOPMENT OF SMART TEXTILES FOR DEFENSE APPLICATIONS

Abstract

Functionalization of textiles through the coating is considered a practical and efficient process for developing conventional textiles into multifunctional smart textiles. Textile substrates are coated with conductive nanomaterial to acquire multi-functionality in conventional textile material. The nanomaterial aggregation on textile surfaces brings various essential properties such as antibacterial, antistatic, conductive, superhydrophobic, etc. making fabric multifunctional and holding other desirable attributes like lightweight, flexibility, mechanical, and thermal stability. The emerging fields of nanomaterials and nanotechnology brought a revolution in the high-performance textile manufacturing field. The current work involves the synthesis of graphene oxide (GO) from graphite flakes, adopting the Modified Hummers mechanochemical approach for converting graphite to aqueous GO dispersion. It is then coated over the polyester (PET) fabric by dip-coating method; followed by in-situ reduction with L-ascorbic acid, forming reduced graphene oxide (rGO) coated layers on PET. The durability of the coated layer and fabric properties were analyzed after ten washing cycles. Such conductive coating over textiles makes multifunctional smart textiles that can be used for defense applications. This implementation aims to enhance the performance of military technology (like defense uniforms, tents, etc.). By incorporating this approach, we anticipate notable improvements in the overall performance of defense applications. The successful synthesis of GO from graphite flakes was confirmed through FTIR, XRD, and UV-Vis Spectroscopy. FESEM and TGA were done to analyze the microstructure and thermal stability of the samples. XPS and RAMAN were done to determine reduction in the Carbon: Oxygen ratio after reduction of GO-coated PET fabric (CPET), Water Contact Angle (WCA) Test was done to check the hydrophobic properties, anti-bacterial test, conductivity, flexural rigidity (FR), water vapor transmission (WVT) rate, air permeability (AP) test was performed. It was investigated that the RPET textile sample exhibited strong antibacterial activity toward E. coli bacteria and showed higher washing fastness. The surface resistivity of rGO-coated samples (RPET) comes up to 1.63×106 Ω/square which was 1.61×1010 Ω/square and 3.422×109 Ω/square for PET, and CPET respectively. The reduction in resistivity of RPET was negligible after 10 washing cycles (i.e. 2.5×106 Ω/square). The WCA result reveals that RPET samples became superhydrophobic from hydrophobic PET. AP, WVT rates, and FR through the textile samples improved after coating and slightly reduced after 10 times washing. These tests mimic real-life environmental conditions that defense personnel may encounter during surveillance. The above discoveries have the potential to develop smart textiles for defense applications in extreme weather conditions.