Speaking of outdoor sports, we have to mention the increasingly hot travel in Tibet over the years. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is a mountain holy land for many travelers, where there are snow-capped mountains all year round. Therefore, it has become a place for many outdoor athletes. In addition to the requirements of the physical fitness and skills of the participants, outdoor sports also need outdoor clothing to adapt to bad weather and complex geographical environment, so as to ensure the personal safety of the athletes.

Although there is no essential difference between outdoor sports clothing and home clothing, due to the two characteristics of outdoor and sports, the requirements for clothing are relatively strict and harsh: outdoor sports generate large heat and sweat evaporation, and clothing is required to have good heat dissipation and air permeability. It is inevitable to encounter wind, rain, snow and fog in the wild. Clothing should have certain waterproof performance. Outdoor sports hope to reduce the load as much as possible, and clothing should be as light as much as possible, windproof and warm-keeping performance requires high outdoor washing conditions are limited, the antibacterial and deodorant and stain-proof clothing requires high field work, rock climbing and forest penetration, clothing requires good tensile and tear resistance... These performance requirements from the perspective of textile technology It is very harsh, and even many indicators are contradictory. Any single natural or chemical fiber can not meet these requirements, only through a variety of fiber composite and multi-way chemical finishing to achieve these functions.

Heat retention

Although the warmth is closely related to the thickness of the fabric, outdoor sports do not allow clothing to be too heavy, so it is necessary to keep warm and light to meet the special requirements of outdoor sports clothing. The most common method is to add special ceramic powder containing chromium oxide, magnesium oxide, zirconium oxide and other special ceramic powders, especially nano-scale fine ceramic powder, which can absorb visible light such as sunlight and convert it into heat, and can also reflect the far infrared rays emitted by the human body itself, so it has excellent heat preservation and heat storage performance. Of course, the far-infrared ceramic powder, adhesive and crosslinking agent can also be formulated into a finishing agent, the woven fabric is coated, and then dried and baked, so that the nano ceramic powder is attached to the surface of the fabric and between the yarn. The finishing agent emits far infrared rays with a wavelength of 8~14 μm, and also has health care functions such as bacteriostasis, deodorization, and promotion of blood circulation.

In addition, according to the principle of bionics, referring to the structure of polar bear hair, the interior of the polyester fiber is made into a porous hollow shape, so that the fiber contains a large amount of non-circulating air, and the exterior is made into a spiral crimp shape to maintain fluffiness, which can play a good heat preservation effect on the premise of ensuring light texture. Of course, making clothes and even fabrics into double layers or even three layers to increase the non-circulating air layer is also one of the most traditional measures to keep warm.

Stain resistance and ease of decontamination

Outdoor sports often walk through the muddy and wet mountains and forests. It is inevitable that clothes should be dirty. This requires that the appearance of clothes should not be easily stained by stains as much as possible, and once stained, it should be easy to wash and remove. Changing the surface properties of the fiber, greatly improving the surface tension of the fabric, making it difficult for oil stains and other stains to penetrate into the fabric. Slight stains can be removed by wiping with a wet cloth, and heavier stains are also easy to clean. The anti-fouling finishing can not only prevent oil pollution, but also has the performance of waterproof and moisture permeability, generally known as the "three anti-finishing" (water repellent, oil repellent, anti-fouling), is a more practical and effective means of advanced chemical finishing, commonly used in the outer layer of clothing and backpacks, shoes, tents fabric finishing.

Waterproof and moisture permeability

The sports meeting emits a lot of sweat, and it is inevitable to encounter wind and rain outdoors. This in itself is a pair of contradictions: it is necessary to prevent rain and snow from getting wet, but also to discharge the sweat emitted by the body in time. Fortunately, the human body emits water vapor in a monomolecular state, while rain and snow are liquid droplets in an aggregated state, and their sizes are very different. In addition, liquid water has a characteristic called surface tension, that is, the characteristic of gathering its own volume. The water we see on the lotus leaf is granular water droplets instead of flat water stains. This is because there is a layer of waxy fuzz tissue on the surface of the lotus leaf, and water droplets cannot diffuse and permeate on this layer of waxy fuzz due to surface tension. If you put a drop of detergent or washing powder into the water droplets, because the detergent can greatly reduce the surface tension of the liquid, the water droplets will immediately disintegrate and spread flat on the lotus leaf. Waterproof and moisture permeable clothing is a chemical coating that uses the surface tension characteristics of water to coat a layer of PTFE (the same chemical composition and different physical structure as PTFE, the king of corrosion-resistant fibers) on the fabric to enhance the surface tension of the fabric, so that the water droplets can be tightened as much as possible without spreading and infiltrating the surface of the fabric, thus unable to penetrate the pores on the fabric tissue. At the same time, the coating is porous, and the water vapor in the single molecule state can be smoothly distributed to the surface of the fabric through the capillary channels between the fibers.

After a large amount of exercise, if you stop to rest in the wild, it is possible that because the outside temperature is low, sweat can not escape in time and form water droplets in the inner layer of clothes, so that people have a very uncomfortable feeling, this is the so-called "condensation" phenomenon. There is a special moisture permeable finishing process called "low condensation". It uses polyurethane (PU) and hydrophilic nano-ceramic powder to coat the fabric. It can absorb too much sweat vapor when the body evaporates sweat, thus avoiding the phenomenon that the water vapor inside the clothes exceeds the saturated vapor pressure and is converted into water droplets.

In addition to the way from the fiber and coating, the fabric structure can also try to do moisture wicking. For example, the use of double-layer structure, close to the inner layer of hydrophobic fibers, and the outer layer of hydrophilic fibers, so that sweat can rely on capillary action, transferred from the skin to the inner layer of fibers, and because the outer layer of hydrophilic fibers and water molecules in the inner layer of hydrophobic fibers, water molecules again from the inner layer of the fabric to the outer layer, and finally distributed to the atmosphere.

Antibacterial and deodorant

Due to the characteristics of the movement caused by sweat, sebaceous gland secretion. And outdoor conditions can not often change clothes, in the appropriate temperature and humidity environment, microorganisms will multiply, causing people to emit indecent smell and cause itching. Therefore, the regular outdoor sports clothing is antibacterial deodorant chemical finishing. The way of finishing is generally to have a bactericidal effect of organic quaternary amine type, imidazoline type surfactant or silver, copper and other heavy metal ions through the resin and cross-linking agent fixed on the fiber, so that it has a certain degree of washing resistance.

Of course, an important principle in choosing fungicides must be non-toxic or low-toxic, otherwise it will be the end of the quest. In recent years, Japan has made many explorations in the research of natural antibacterial finishing agents. For example, aromatic oil extracts with bactericidal effect, such as aloe, wormwood, eucalyptus, rose, etc., are coated in porous organic microcapsules or porous ceramic powder and attached to the fabric, and are crosslinked and fixed with resin, and the fungicides are slowly released through mechanical effects such as friction and backlog to achieve the purpose of durable antibacterial finishing. This kind of natural antibacterial agent is not only non-toxic and harmless, but also has certain health care function, which should be the development direction of antibacterial finishing. However, due to the limited means of fixing antibacterial agents at present, the washing resistance of antibacterial agents is not good enough, and the antibacterial performance decreases every time it is washed, and generally disappears completely after dozens of times.

Antistatic and anti-radiation finishing

Mountaineering is the core content of outdoor sports. In addition to the original dense forest, the alpine plateau above 3000 meters above sea level is generally dry due to low air pressure and easy volatilization of water. Outdoor clothing is basically made of chemical fiber fabrics, so the electrostatic problem is more prominent. The harm of static electricity is generally manifested as easy pilling of clothes, easy contamination of dust and dirt, electric shock and sticky feeling close to the skin, etc. If you carry sophisticated electronic instruments such as electronic compasses, altitudes, GPS navigators, etc., you may be disturbed by the static electricity of your clothing and cause errors, which will have serious consequences.

Any object rubbing against each other may generate static electricity, but only dry insulating objects will accumulate static electricity and cause harm. Therefore, the best antistatic fabric is of course made of natural fibers, but as mentioned above, pure natural fibers are difficult to meet the special requirements of outdoor sports, and even natural fibers, in a very dry environment, will be due to the lack of water molecules. Generate static electricity. There are two main ways of anti-static finishing of fabrics: one is to simply weave metal wires into the fabric to make conductive fabrics (also electromagnetic wave shielding fabrics and anti-radiation fabrics) to timely conduct and dissipate the static electricity generated by friction to the outside world. However, this fabric is not suitable for sports clothing, mainly because it is not soft and comfortable enough. Another method is to use block polyether, polyacrylate and other anti-static agents with moisture absorption, to the fabric surface coated with a layer of chemical film can absorb water molecules, so that the fabric surface to form a layer of continuous conductive water film, the electrostatic conduction to escape.

Due to the relative thinning of the atmosphere in high altitude areas, the blocking and filtering effect of ultraviolet rays is greatly reduced, and the intensity of ultraviolet rays is much higher than that in low altitude areas. Ultraviolet rays can effectively promote the production of vitamins and have a bactericidal effect, but excessively strong irradiation will cause damage to human skin. The penetration of ultraviolet rays is very strong, and the general fiber fabric cannot completely shield its irradiation. The nanoscale inorganic titanium dioxide (TiO2), nano zinc oxide (ZnO) and other ultraviolet shielding agents and organic salicylic acid, cyanoacrylate, benzophenone, benzotriazole and other ultraviolet absorbers, the use of resin crosslinking method fixed on the fabric, can play a certain role in radiation protection.

Outdoor sports clothing represents the latest cutting-edge technology in the development of today's textile science. A set of professional outdoor sports clothing that integrates windproof, breathable, moisture-proof, warmth, and radiation protection. For a climber, sometimes it may have The same meaning as life!