Cotton fabrics with mesh sizes down to ~ 1 μm are available commercially.  Fabric or mats with mesh sizes down to 100 nm can be obtained from electrospinning.  Our group has modified various cotton fabrics and electrospan nanofiber mats for practical applications.  Reviewed in this talk are our efforts in this area.     <br/>First, polymers are grafted onto different sides of cotton fabrics to yield Janus filters.  These filters are hydrophilic on one side but superhydrophobic on the other.  Contacting an emulsion, the hydrophilic side causes emulsified oil droplets in water to coalesce.  The coalesced oil then selectively permeates the superhydrophobic side.  These filters selectively separate oil from water even when their pore sizes are two orders of magnitude larger than the uncoalesced oil droplets and thus possess high fluxes.  The rapid separation of oil from emulsions is of practical value.     <br/>In the second project, a photocrosslinkable hydrophobic polymer is grafted onto fibers of cotton fabric and an electrospun nanofiber mat.  Photolithography is then used to pattern the fabric or mat into superhydrophobic and superhydrophilic regions.  We show that these patterned fabric or mats can be used as stencils for screen-printing high-fidelity texts and pictures and electric circuits.  The mats also serve as a platform for simple microfluidic devices and sensors.<br/>

Functional textiles for screen printing and oil/water separation

256th National Meeting (2018)

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