by Staff Writers Eindhoven, Netherlands (SPX) Jan 23, 2013
Researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e)
together with researchers at the Hong Kong Polytechnic
University (PolyU), have developed a special treatment for
cotton fabric that allows the cotton to absorb exceptional
amounts of water from misty air: 340 % of its own weight. What
makes this 'coated cotton' so interesting is that the cotton
releases the collected water by itself, as it gets warmer. This
property makes of the coated cotton materials a potential
solution to provide water to the desert regions, for example for
agricultural purposes. The results of this research will be
published next month in the scientific journal Advanced
Materials. The researchers applied a coating of PNIPAAm, a
polymer, to the cotton fabric. At lower temperatures, this
cotton has a sponge-like structure at microscopic level. Up to a
temperature of 34C it is highly hydrophilic, in other words it
absorbs water strongly. Through this property the cotton can a