What is the importance of medical protective clothing? Where is it reflected?

What are the special functions of medical protective clothing compared to regular clothing? What are the special requirements for the corresponding materials?

1、 The importance of medical protective clothing

In the current situation that COVID-19 is still rampant, medical protective clothing includes protective clothing required for the safety of medical staff, public health workers, patients, hospital visitors and other personnel entering the infected area to isolate the life and work safety of bacteria, harmful ultra-fine dust, acid and alkali solutions and other related personnel, while maintaining a clean environment.

The performance indicators of medical protective clothing mainly refer to protection, comfort, physical and mechanical properties, etc. Protection is an important performance requirement in medical protective clothing, mainly including liquid blocking, microbial blocking, particle material blocking, etc. Comfort mainly refers to breathability and moisture permeability. In order to improve the protective effect, protective clothing fabrics are usually thick after layer by layer or peritoneal treatment, with poor breathability and moisture permeability. Long term wear must be breathable, breathable, and sweat wicking. The physical and mechanical properties mainly refer to medical protective clothing materials that require tearing, puncture prevention, and wear resistance in order to avoid the transmission channels of bacteria and viruses.

2、 Breathability of medical protective clothing

Disposable medical protective clothing materials need to meet the requirements of "three resistances" (i.e., rejection of water, rejection of blood, rejection of alcohol, and prevention of static electricity) in the micro nano level. This composite material can be combined with polyethylene/polypropylene non-woven fabric, breathable microporous film or other non-woven fabrics to synthesize spunlace non-woven fabric and breathable microporous film, or synthesized with various materials such as ranch composite sponge non-woven fabric. In addition, there are films made of polytetrafluoroethylene that can be used to make high-end protective clothing fabrics. These materials are particularly important in composite materials for their breathable microporous films.

Breathable film refers to the uniform addition of functional inorganic products to polyolefin raw materials, and the use of high magnification stretching to create pores during the film-forming process, making it breathable and conductive to moisture.

(1) The principle of breathability in protective clothing

The principle is simple: inorganic substances+stretching=micropores, and the actual operation is very meticulous. Only micropores of appropriate size and uniform distribution are effective.

If the stretching is insufficient, it will lead to a small or even no pore size, and poor stretching and undersized micropores can only be used as waste.

(2) Basic film-forming principle of protective clothing transmission film

The formation principle of breathable film: PE+CaCO3 (masterbatch) - film-forming - stretching - breathable film. PE breathable film is blended with about 50% special calcium carbonate in LDPE/LLDPE polyethylene resin carrier. After extrusion with the film, a certain proportion of directional stretching is achieved. Polyethylene resin is a thermoplastic material, so it can be stretched and crystallized under certain conditions. During stretching, interface strips will occur between the polymer and calcium carbonate particles, and interconnected curved pores or channels will form around the calcium carbonate particles. It is these pores and channels that endow the film with breathability (moisture) function and communicate the environment on both sides of the film.