W.L. Gore & Associates, a Newark, Del., manufacturing company specializing in products derived from fluoropolymers, plans to invest more than $15 million in developing “new approaches” to durable water repellent (DWR) solutions in the next five years.
There has been debate in the outdoor industry over PFCs, which can be formed as a byproduct of the technology that makes textiles resistant to oil and soil, and have some negative implications for health.
Gore has eliminated perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) from its raw materials in the manufacture of functional textiles has been evaluating a range of DWR treatments based on both fluorinated polymers and non-fluorinated polymers since 2013, but found non-fluorinated DWR treatment failed after only a short time of field use.
The company is open to different ideas and technologies from both internal and external resources, says John Cusick, head of consumer garments, as it works toward reducing the environmental footprint of its products.
Source: W.L. Gore