Sustainable textile finishing increasingly focuses on molecular-level fibre integration. MARS modification and ProLine A1-S exemplify academic and commercial innovations achieving durable, PFAS-free water repellency.
Contents
Key takeaways
Academic spotlight: Bioinspired one-step fabrication technique for robust, durable water-repellent fabrics
What and why?
What do the results suggest?
Are there real-world applications?
Scalability: What’s next?
Future outlook & industrial translation
Commercial spotlight: H&B Materials
ProLine A1-S: A new approach to addressing the PFAS challenge
A biobased alternative with industrial potential
Scaling for market adoption
Key takeaways:
- Advances in textile finishing and treatments are increasingly focused on replacing conventional coatings with more durable and sustainable approaches via molecular-level design.
- MARS modification demonstrates a laboratory-scale breakthrough in achieving superhydrophobic fabrics. The approach claims exceptional mechanical durability under harsh conditions through a fibre-integrated surface engineering strategy.
- The ProLine A1-S treatment, from 2025 French start-up, H&B Materials, represents a commercial PFAS-free textile treatment designed for industrial adoption. It offers water repellency through biobased chemistry compatible with existing manufacturing processes.
Academic spotlight: Bioinspired one-step fabrication technique for robust, durable water-repellent fabrics
WTiN speaks with Dr Zhichao Dong of the Technical Institute of Physical Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, about his team's latest research published March 2026, in Nature Communications. The study, first authored by Zhuoxing Liu and titled One-step fabrication of superhydrophobic fabrics with stable mechanical performance in harsh conditions, demonstrates an alternative strategy for achieving superhydrophobicity through direct fibre-level modification of textile surfaces [1].
Inspired by the superhydrophobic skin structure of springtails – a species of arthropod – the team has developed a bioinspired, PFAS-free, one-step fabrication approach that produces highly durable superhydrophobic fabrics. The resulting textiles maintain excellent water-repellent performance even under extreme mechanical, environmental, and thermal stress conditions.
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