More sustainable textile coating for sportswear

An innovative textile coating helps reduce the CO₂ footprint in the production of sports shoes and shorts. The more sustainably produced sportswear is used by a team of students.

Team Sonnenwagen, a team of students from RWTH Aachen University and FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences in Germany, has a vision: to create a more sustainable form of mobility by using renewable energy. In October 2023, they want to compete again with their self-designed solar racing car at the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge in Australia. The team is also placing just as much emphasis on more sustainable equipment for this purpose. Huafeng, a leading company in the field of textile technology, supports this wish by providing more sustainably produced sports shoes and shorts for the team outfit. Huafeng is using a partially bio-based polyurethane (PU) dispersion from Covestro, the main sponsor of Team Sonnenwagen, as the basis for this.

The new official gear for the team provided by Huafeng includes shorts and athletic shoes whose designs are made with Huafeng's newly developed Haptic textile coating system using partially bio-based Insqin PU dispersions from Covestro. In addition, the fabrics for Huafeng's garments and shoes are made using recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) yarns obtained from used plastic bottles by Cyclone. The uppers of the shoes are made from 100 percent Cyclone rPET, while the shorts are made from 86 percent Cyclone rPET and 14 percent Spandex for comfortable wear.

Lina Schwering, team leader of Team Sonnenwagen Aachen, is thrilled: "Our new official gear looks simply stunning. We are particularly impressed by how much sustainability is in it! It also offers excellent performance and fits so well with our vision of a more sustainable future of mobility. We are grateful for the continued support of Cyclone, Huafeng with its Haptic products and Covestro in our quest to make this vision a reality."

Developed by Huafeng using Covestro's Impranil CQ DLS/1 partially bio-based PU, the Haptic Art textile coating enables outstanding aesthetic design combined with better mechanical performance in terms of footwear, while achieving a reduction in production-related emissions. Thanks to its high solids content and thixotropic properties, manufacturers can achieve high film thickness with the system. This makes it ideal for producing coatings with detailed images and sophisticated 3D effects on clothing and footwear.

Images and textures applied with the Haptic Art printing ink system have been subjected to a series of tests that evaluated properties such as flexibility, adhesion and resistance to hydrolysis, washing and abrasion. The results are excellent and prove that the Art ink is particularly suitable for coating high-performance sports shoes. For its outstanding mechanical properties, Huafeng's printing ink system recently won the ISPO Best Product Award.

Dr. Thomas Schmidt, Director Innovation & Creation at Huafeng, says: "The Haptic Art printing ink is an important extension of our capabilities for aesthetic coatings, offering exceptional design versatility and significant environmental benefits. For example, the new shoes for Team Sonnenwagen save 260 g of CO2e emissions per pair compared to conventionally manufactured athletic shoes. We look forward to developing even more sustainable solutions that help drive the future of textile coatings."

Due to its good environmental performance, the new coating system can also help meet the growing demand for more sustainable sportswear. Conventional sportswear and footwear are mainly made with fossil-based PET materials and PU coatings to achieve the required performance and durability, as well as the desired design. But by combining Huafeng's textile coating expertise with Covestro's partially bio-based Insqin PU technology, Team Sonnenwagen's new finish proves that a more sustainable approach is possible.

Dr. Torsten Pohl, head of Global Textile Coatings at Covestro, explains, "This new textile coating system is a big step forward, both in terms of performance and aesthetics. Covestro's partially bio-based ^Impranil® CQ PU dispersion contributes significantly to the shoe's improved environmental footprint, with around 80 g of_{CO2e savings*}. This technology opens the way for manufacturers in the apparel and footwear industry to create more attractive products with a lower environmental impact." (OM-08/23)