Large-scale production of a “skin-like” self-pumping fabric for personal sweat management

Fabrics designed for personal sweat management, capable of efficiently transporting sweat away from the skin, are highly sought after for enhancing thermal comfort and conserving energy. However, the fabrication processes for these functional garments require intricate physical and chemical modifications, resulting in poor durability and limited suitability for mass production. In this study, a "skin-like" self-pumping fabric, consisting of hydrophobic polyester coils and hydrophilic microfiber polyester coils arranged on a bi-layer knitting fabric, is presented. This configuration allows for unidirectional wicking of sweat away from the skin. The accumulative one-way transport index increased to 717.18% when spandex filaments were introduced into the polyester fabric, which was greater than that of the pristine polyester fabric (393.71%). This exceptional property is achieved by creating differential capillary effects across a predominant combination of microfiber polyester and ordinary hydrophobic polyester. In addition to functional clothing, this "skin-like" self-pumping fabric has great potential for various applications, including industrial textiles, medical wound dressings, geotechnical engineering, and device diaphragms. Overall, this work presents an effective design to achieve large-scale manufacturing of personal sweat management fabrics, which is expected to guide material design for future innovations in functional textiles.