What is Coolmax and Coolplus fiber? Do you know about them?

What is Coolmax and Coolplus fiber? In this article,Zhejiang Dingyi New Materials Technology Co., Ltd.Will introduce you to these two kinds of fiber.

With the improvement of living standards, people have higher and higher requirements for the performance of textiles, especially comfort performance. Comfort is the human body's physiological feeling of the fabric, mainly including heat, moisture, and contact comfort. From the current analysis of textile technology, contact comfort and pressure comfort can generally be solved in the textile post-treatment process. In contrast, heat and moisture comfort refers to the body's excessive energy emission through the skin's breathing, which is expressed in the form of heat and moisture dissipation to the surrounding environment. The role of textiles is that of a medium between the human body and the environment and its role as a medium in the breathing process of human skin. This means that it keeps the skin warm when it is cold and helps the skin to quickly dissipate heat and sweat when it is hot.

For clothing, wearing comfort is to require it to have the effect of moisture absorption, dryness, breathability, and warmth. People in the past liked to choose cotton fabrics because cotton fiber macromolecules have more hydrophilic groups and excellent moisture absorption performance. However, after being wet with sweat, cotton fabrics dry very slowly. They will stick to the human skin, bringing extremely uncomfortable sticky, damp and cold feeling. And ordinary synthetic fibers, although fast sweat, the moisture absorption is very poor, and their fabric comfort is not very high. Therefore, when the new moisture-wicking fibers were developed, they immediately attracted a lot of attention and were used in T-shirts, socks, underwear, sportswear, and other textiles. It has a broad market prospect.

Moisture-wicking fibers use the capillary phenomenon generated by the microscopic grooves on the fiber surface to make sweat quickly migrate to the surface of the fabric and disperse through core absorption, diffusion, and transmission, plus the contact point between the fiber and the skin is reduced due to the design of the cross-section to ensure that the skin remains superior dry after sweating, thus achieving the purpose of moisture conduction and quick drying. The capillary effect is the most commonly used and the most intuitive method to show the fabric's ability to absorb sweat as well as its ability to diffuse.

Moisture-wicking fibers are functional fibers focusing on moisture-wicking and sweat-wicking properties and comfort in clothing. In the past, the mainstay of moisture-wicking and wicking properties was the compounding of natural and synthetic fibers. Their use was only within a narrow range. Fibers with moisture-wicking function have a high specific surface area and numerous micro-pores or grooves on the surface. They are generally designed with shaped cross-sections, which makes use of the capillary principle, enabling the fibers to quickly absorb, transport, diffuse and evaporate water, and thus can quickly absorb moisture and sweat from the skin surface and evacuate to the outer layer. Coolmax and Coolplus fibers are typical of the two moisture-wicking fibers.

1. Coolmax fiber

Developed by DuPont, Coolmax is a shaped cross-sectional polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fiber with a flattened cross-section so that its surface forms four Tetra-Channels, i.e., four perspiration ducts.

This flat four groove structure can make the adjacent fibers easy to close together, forming several capillary effects of the fine core suction pipe, with the ability to quickly drain sweat to the fabric surface and the function. At the same time, the specific surface area of the fiber is 19.8% larger than that of the same fineness standard circular cross-section fiber, so after the sweat is discharged to the surface of the fiber fabric, it can quickly evaporate into the surrounding atmosphere. The heterogeneous cross-section makes a large gap between the fibers so that it has excellent breathability. Therefore, this structure of Coolmax fiber gives the fiber fabric moisture-conducting and fast-drying performance.

Under the standard condition, test cotton, electrostatic spinning polyester staple fiber,nylon, silk, polypropylene, acrylic, Coolmax fiber, and other seven kinds of fibers, moisture loss rate at different times. Coolmax fiber in 30 min moisture loss rate of almost 100%. Compared with cotton fiber moisture loss rate is only about 50%, and acrylic is 85%. It can be seen that garments made with Coolmax fiber can keep the skin dry and comfortable and have excellent warmth and cold protection.

2. Coolplus fiber

Coolplus fiber is developed by Taiwan Chung Hsing Co., Ltd. It is a new polyester fiber with good moisture absorption and wicking function. Coolplus is a combination of PET and special polymers. Its fiber cross-section is "cross-shaped," in addition to the "cross-shaped" four grooves to achieve moisture transfer. It also adds a special polymer, using the difference in solubility of each component of the material, giving the fiber numerous fine grooves.

The capillaries created by the fine grooves of Coolplus fibers, in the absence of an external force field, form an additional gravitational force due to the boundary and tension, which automatically directs the flow of liquids. Through the capillary phenomenon generated by these fine grooves, moisture and sweat discharged from the surface of the skin are instantly discharged from the body surface through the diffusion and transmission of core suction, thus keeping the skin dry and cool.

Final thoughts

1. Coolmax fiber has a flat cross-sectional shape with four perspiration grooves on its surface and a large specific surface area, and there are numerous fine grooves in the fiber, which makes Coolmax fiber have excellent moisture absorption and perspiration. In terms of dryness, the drying rate at the same time is about twice that of cotton, ahead of other fibers.

2. Coolplus fiber cross-section is a "cross" shape so that sweat, through the core absorption, diffusion, transmission, and other effects, quickly migrates to the surface of the fabric and disperses. From the viewpoint of moisture absorption, compared with cotton,nylon, and polyester fabrics, Coolplus materials have the best moisture absorption and perspiration.