Multifunctional Fabric Leveraging Coating of Bio-based Waterborne Polyurethane

Multifunctional fabrics that integrate with UV protection, flame retardancy, and antimicrobial performance promise significant applications ranging from smart wear/clothes to biomedical devices. However, the endeavor to design and manufacture multifunctional fabrics using a singular technological approach remains profoundly challenging, primarily due to the interactions of different functions, as well as the requirements for sustainability and cost-effectiveness during the manufacturing process. Here, we devised a novel multifunctional fabric through the rational design of a multicomponent coating that enables UV protection, flame retardancy, and antimicrobial performance for coated fabrics. In this coating, bio-based waterborne polyurethane prepared from polyurethane prepolymers, and modified castor oil biomass can endow a fabric with flame retardancy, and antimicrobial properties induced by the functional compositions of castor oil, glycerophosphate, and 2-chloro-4,6-diamide-1,3,5-triazine (CDT), while UV-531, ultraviolet absorber that is chemically incorporated as the ends of the bio-based waterborne polyurethane, offers UV protection function for the fabric. The as-devised fabrics exhibit effective flame retardancy (limiting oxygen index 27.4%), strong UV protection (ultraviolet protection factor = 106), and excellent antimicrobial properties (antibacterial rate > 95.6). This work paves a practical engineering approach for creating high-performance multifunctional fabrics with sustainable and designable features.