Source: Dow Corning

Silicones are amazing materials with a unique potential to improve the world we share.

Did you know... silicones have revolutionized the textiles industry! Silicones make clothing more stylish, comfortable, and easier to care for. They also give automotive and industrial textiles high-performance capabilities. With proven silicone technology, manufacturers worldwide can create fabrics, clothing, and sporting goods that are ideal for todays active lifestyles.

Silicones excel in both fashion and industrial textiles applications:

• Silicone fabric finishes bring a wide range of benefits to fashion textiles. They add softness, reduce shrinkage and improve wrinkle recovery, tear strength, abrasion resistance, and loft recovery. They can also improve water repellency or water absorbency.
• Silicone antifoams possess the properties required to control foam in harsh textiles processing environments.
• Silicone fabric coatings maintain their flexibility and stability over a wider range of temperatures than organic coatings. So the coatings do not become stiff and brittle in the cold or degrade when exposed to heat.
• In apparel, silicone coatings are breathable, comfortable, and suitable for skin contact.
• In automotive, manufacturing, construction, and sporting goods applications, silicone coatings are strong, durable, and resistant to heat, cold, moisture, UV rays, fire, and abrasion.
• Silicones can be very cost effective to use, because they are easy to process and effective at low use levels.

Silicones enable manufacturers to take textile finishing beyond simple coating, waterproofing, and softening to create functional fabrics, intelligent textiles, as well as high-performance textiles for industrial applications.

Textile screen printing: Silicones are helping expand opportunities for textile screen printers. Recent advances in silicone textile printing inks are enabling screen printers and brand-name apparel manufacturers alike to produce durable, high-quality screen printing that looks great, feels soft, and is wash resistant. The ink has high elongation (good stretch and recovery properties), so it is well suited for use on fabric with 15-20 percent spandex content.

Traditional inks can require 12-15 layers to achieve optimal coverage. Screen printers can achieve the same effect with only three layers of the new silicone inks. The result is a less bulky finish, lower material usage, faster production cycles, and labor cost savings.