SilCoTex: Sustainable anti-soiling textile

Purpose and goal

The goal of the project was to provide the Swedish textile industry with a substitute, based on ecofriendly materials, to the current fluorine based anti-soiling finishing technology. The main objective was therefore to integrate a know-how from the painting industry in the form of novel coatings for textiles. This has been successfully conducted by developing and testing prototypes by the textile partners for various kind of materials, using current methods of productions and new methods of applications, leading to further implementation.

Expected results and effects

The newly developed coatings have been tested both in small scale production with the textile partners, as well as in larger scale for on-site and in real situation evaluation. The results show that the solutions developed can be implemented in the current production scheme and that the anti-soil properties are suitable for targeted applications. The outcome of this work is a new family of finishes that can be competitive, for some applications, with current state of the art of anti-soiling treatment while managing less noxious products.

Planned approach and implementation

By targeting specific features provided by perfluorinated compounds (PFC), and avoiding the general pitfall of trying to make a one-to-one substitute to PFC, we have been able to develop suitable alternatives capable of delivering good performance for anti-soil properties for a variety of textile. One of the key aspects has been to understand the partners needs and to tune the formulations to meet the production requirements that varies depending on the application. By doing so, we have been able to enhance and upscale the solutions developed in step 1 and implement some of the them.