5:00 PM - EQ16.06.03
Beyond Traditional Polyethylene Fibers for Passively Cooling Monomaterial Textiles
Volodymyr Korolovych1,Svetlana Boriskina1,2
Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology1,Massachusetts Institute of Technology2
Show Abstract
Considering the adoption of the sustainable circular bioeconomy, polyethylene (PE) fibers produced from green, renewable raw material are becoming more and more critical for everyday clothes, bedding textile and wearables due to their low environmental footprint and combination of material low-cost, durability with lightweight, high UV resistance and infrared (IR) transparency. [1-4] It is not surprising that the unique properties of green PE can be exploited to engineer high-performance sustainable fibers with mechanical properties tunable by design. Here, we explore the role of polyethylene molecular architecture in engineering mechanical properties and surface morphology of fibers based on the traditional fossil sourced raw PE and sugarcane-derived, renewable raw PE material. A range of fibers with different material parameters have been fabricated by a low-cost melt-extrusion method, mechanically and optically characterized, and classified according to their crystallographic structure as well as elongation, strength, recovery properties, and surface morphology. Differential scanning calorimetry and X-ray scattering techniques confirmed that by combining precise engineering of molecular structure we can adjust structural disorder in PE fibers, which results in crystallinity of fibers ranging from ~8% to ~60% and different crystallite orientation along the fiber axis. This tunability of the fiber molecular structure translates into a wide range of elongation at break, specific stiffness and specific strength values as well as tunable infrared transparency and thermal conductivity values. These results demonstrate feasibility of low-cost, large-scale fabrication of green PE fibers with a wide range of mechanical performance, smooth fiber surfaces, and variable cross-sectional shapes, paving the road to engineering mono-material high-performance sustainable textiles. These mono-material textiles can find applications in passive cooling technologies and are 100% recyclable at the end of their lifecycle.
This work was supported by the DEVCOM Soldier Center through the US Army Research Office (W911NF-13-D-0001), the Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA) Institute (W15QKN-16-3-0001), the MIT Deshpande Center, and the US Department of Energy (DE-FG02-02ER45977). We thank B. A. Welsh (DEVCOM SC) for help with PE fiber fabrication and Braskem and Dow Chemical Company for providing raw olefin polymers.
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