Review on the development of unidirectional water-transport fibers and fabrics

Unidirectional water-transport fabric is a kind of functional fiber assembles used to realize unidirectional conduction of liquid water, and it could be used for the design and development of clothing with the function of thermal-wet comfort. The development of unidirectional water-transport fabrics from the mechanism of the unidirectional water-transport, selection of fiber and preparation method is summarized. Five key methods to achieve the unidirectional water-transport effect have been reviewed, including the designing of fabric structure, chemical finishing, plasma treatment, electro spinning and photocatalytic treatment. According to the current problems in the research on unidirectional water-transfer fabric, it is proposed that multi-functional unidirectional water-transfer fabrics should be developed by post-treatment finishing technology with adding special functional additives to expand the practical applications.