The story of Teflon's transformation into clothing material: Who invented Gore-Tex?
Before Gore-Tex was invented, there were many different types of fabric that protected people from inclement weather. But each had their own handicap.
The vinyl cloth kept the sweat inside; waxed cotton was a heavy fabric that was difficult to carry. The coats worn by the Eskimos were very effective against the cold, but there was a problem; these products were made from seal gut, and naturally, this was not a suitable material for mass production. However, Bob Gore; When he produced Gore-Tex, known as a waterproof, wind-insulating, and breathable fabric, had no plans to do better than these outdoor clothing materials.
In the late 1960s, while working at his father's Teflon factory, he was working on how to stretch plastic to use it more effectively. In one of his experiments, when he stretched heated PTFE (Teflon is the brand name for this compound), rather than stretching it slowly, he found that air pores filled in. However, he also discovered that the pores appearing inside the elongated Teflon were 700 times larger than the water vapor molecule; it was 20,000 times smaller than a water droplet. Gore quickly concluded that if you made fabric out of PTFE, you could keep out raindrops while venting sweat vapors out.
The first Gore-Tex jacket was produced in 1977 by a small company called Early Winters in Seattle and launched with the slogan "probably the most versatile garment you'll ever wear." Since then, PTFE must have proven to be much more "skillful", with benefits today ranging from the manufacture of space suits to the manufacture of heart patches, which are used in medicine to close heart holes.
Gore-tex is a waterproof and breathable membrane type. Companies such as The North Face, Marmot, Mammut, Arc Teryx, Patagonia, Bestard, and Chiruca combine and use membrane fabrics purchased from Gore with their own products. In some cases, companies send their own fabrics to Gore to be combined with the gore-tex membrane. Some companies only buy membranes from Gore and do the lamination themselves. For example, when you buy a Marmot technical jacket, the cutting, sewing, and fabric of this product were made by Marmot. Only the Gore-tex layer used in the jacket is supplied by Gore. This applies to all other brands and products.