Development Story1 | NICCA Textile Chemicals

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PFC free Water Repellent：NEOSEED NR-7000 series

Many mountain parka, ski wear, down or wind proof jacket have been treating by water repellent.
The water repellent have commonly made by PFC: perfluorochemicals that have not been showing a kind of toxicities. However, many sports or apparel brands have been staying away from the PFC. Since they prefer to take "proactive philosophy" even the PFC have not identified as 100% toxic substance.
NICCA has been focusing to develop PFC-free water repellent and recipe that shows equal or better water repellency to PFC. Below is the development story.

Demand of PFC-free from sports and apparel brands

In early 2000, fluoro materials such as PFOS or PFOA have been suspecting as toxic substance so that C6 or C4 materials have been more commonly using than C8 in global market.
In the circumstances, global sports brands such as adidas, NIKE and puma and famous apparel brands such as H&M and GAP have voluntary forming "ZDHC (Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals) ". They announced that they would eliminate suspected chemical substances such as PFC from finished goods as well as its process. Also, the other famous brands such as THE NORTH FACE and BURBERRY announced to not use PFCs. In Japan, UNIQLO made commitment to eliminate PFCs by 2017.

Key is Lotus Leaves

How can a high water repellent effect be achieved with PFC-free materials? As is so often the case, nature had a good idea long before we came along:
Lotus leaves.
Lotus leaves are known for having a remarkable water repellency in the nature.

The surface of lotus leaves are surrounded by uneven structure. Those structure create high water repellency by trapping a layer of air. The water is repelled by the air, it becomes rounded into waterdrops and rolls off from its surface without wetting the leaves.

We began to develop textile products with a similar structure on their surface, with the same ability to repel water with the power of air. Our solution is a fluorine-free water repellent with high durability that does not negatively affect the texture:NEOSEED NR-7000 series.
We are still continue developing better NEOSEED every single day.

Values for customer with NEOSEED NR-7000 series

NOESEED NR-7000 series which is sustainable and environmentally friendly products provide customer values listed below:

Good for outdoor wear because of durable from washing.
Good for lighter weight of fabrics because of minimum affect for tear strength or slippage.
Good for fabrics that needs to be coating or lamination because of good anti-peeling strength.

NICCA is the one who can offer customer solutions from pretreatment to finishing stage to show the best performance of water repellent finish with NEOSEED NR-7000 series. Please let us know whenever you have questions regarding NEOSEED.

Regarding NEOSEED series's branding (hangtag etc), please click here for more information.