Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Gore-TEX, a lightweight, waterproof fabric made from the expanded form of PTFE

sciencehistory.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 220 posts

Re: Gore-TEX, a lightweight, waterproof fabric made from the expanded form of PTFE

#41

Post by jakub_g »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #27
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #15

Don't know if it's the same, these days, but when I was more "outdoorsy," having the Gore-TEX™ label on something always at least doubled the price. We usually considered it to be worth it.

I don't see much Gore-Tex(tm) stuff around anymore. I was shopping for some rain gear and I don't think it came up. Are there better materials now or is it just too expensive?

In France at least, in sports outdoors shops, pretty much all high-end jackets and mountain shoes have gore-tex.

Some Salomon ones might have their own custom ~equivalent tech though, probably easier and cheaper to make new products as they control the whole process, no need for licensing & testing by the Gore-Tex company.

Re: Gore-TEX, a lightweight, waterproof fabric made from the expanded form of PTFE

#42

Post by [deleted] »

le-mark wrote: post #24
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #15

Don't know if it's the same, these days, but when I was more "outdoorsy," having the Gore-TEX™ label on something always at least doubled the price. We usually considered it to be worth it.

Isn’t it actually “water resistant” though? I spent a lot of nights cold and wet in gore-Tex gear. It would stay dry for a few hours but always soak through.

[deleted]

Re: Gore-TEX, a lightweight, waterproof fabric made from the expanded form of PTFE

#43

Post by fire »

fire wrote: post #20
samwillis wrote: post #17

The article doesn't mention (other than a brief nod to the brand) the other massive use of PTFE, none sticks surfaces originally under the Teflon brand, most commonly found on cookware. It truly is a "magic" material. Teflon and other PTFE based none stick surfaces are now really quite controversial due to the toxic gasses they can give off of you heat them too high. And the manufacturing processes is potentially lin…

Yeah, Adam Ragusea has a decent video[0] covering PFAS coating safety and production concerns; I hadn't realized how bad the factory side of things were prior to this - I only knew that overheating a teflon coated pan will destroy the coating, release toxic gas, and... kill any pet birds in your apartment :( 0: https://youtu.be/vZ1KmVmpC8o

my cliff notes for teflon non-stick:

· Don't use high heat, ever; you will destroy the coating and release toxic gas

· Don't leave the pan to get too hot over medium/low heat either; if a teflon pan ever smokes, you have officially fucked up.

· Don't use hard/sharp utensils against the pan; you will scrape off the coating

· Don't clean the pan with abrasive scrubbers; you will scrape off the coating

· Do use soft plastic, silicone, or wood utensils; these shouldn't damage the coating

· Do wipe the pan after use, while the remnants of cooking are still hot ( honestly this is just a general tip; I always wipe out my carbon steel pan after use as well )

· Do use a soft cloth or sponge and warm / hot water to clean the pan when hand washing; just like seasoned pans, you shouldn't need to clean them with actual soap all that often, but a light once over every so often will not hurt at all and helps mitigate dust/general grime.

· Do soak the pan if you have somehow managed to carbonize food onto the pan; attempting to pry off stuck burned food can pull off parts of the coating.

Personally though I'd recommend a stainless or carbon steel ( cast iron if you don't mind the weight ) and seasoning it, or basically anything with a ceramic coating ( all cliff notes apply to ceramic as well, but due to general coating damage concerns rather than ptfe's production of toxic gas and generation of microplastic granules )

Re: Gore-TEX, a lightweight, waterproof fabric made from the expanded form of PTFE

#44

Post by jcampbell1 »

hyperhopper wrote: post #32
jcampbell1 wrote: post #14

The interesting thing about Gore-TEX is that is no longer patented, and is merely a licensed trademark that brands pay for. The Gore company certifies the designs, and it goes well beyond stretched PTFE. They require a final level of breathability, waterproof seams, various construction techniques, etc. Bob Gore is known for being a savvy businessman, and this is one example of how to turn a 20 year patent into a 100…

The thing is, the brand means a lot here. I've tried probably a majority of the major alternatives. Every winter sports company will claim their version of goretex is just as good, but they all fall short, usually waterproofing, or sometimes they just suffer from the garbage bag effect. Either way, I've spent hundreds of dollars on too many copycats to ever bother with non-goretex again. It's not financially worth it

I agree with everything you said, and the Gore company is in the business of certifying the jacket will perform well.

That being said, for fishing where you are going to get fish guts everywhere, lots of people are now wearing this super cheap Frogg Toggs brand rather than rubbers. There is a place for super cheap PTFE gear.

Re: Gore-TEX, a lightweight, waterproof fabric made from the expanded form of PTFE

#45

Post by jakub_g »

torstenvl wrote: post #37
le-mark wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t it actually “water resistant” though? I spent a lot of nights cold and wet in gore-Tex gear. It would stay dry for a few hours but always soak through.

It's waterproof if you maintain it. There's special detergent and whatnot. We use Gore-TEX jackets in the Marines, and in the field you can tell who washed their gear correctly and who didn't.

The term to google is "durable water repellent" (DWR). In sport shops you can buy sprays or washing liquids to treat the jackets.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durable_water_repellent

Also note each jacket has a different thickness of the gore-tex layer which conditions how many hours of rain it can withstand.

Re: Gore-TEX, a lightweight, waterproof fabric made from the expanded form of PTFE

#46

Post by DenisM »

torstenvl wrote: post #37
le-mark wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t it actually “water resistant” though? I spent a lot of nights cold and wet in gore-Tex gear. It would stay dry for a few hours but always soak through.

It's waterproof if you maintain it. There's special detergent and whatnot. We use Gore-TEX jackets in the Marines, and in the field you can tell who washed their gear correctly and who didn't.

Wow, I had no idea the US military is that well equipped. Somehow I always thought the military have to tough it out while the civilians get all the fancy outdoor tech.

You wouldn’t happen to have the official Marines Goretex washing manual handy, would you?

Re: Gore-TEX, a lightweight, waterproof fabric made from the expanded form of PTFE

#48

Post by VygmraMGVl »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #39

Wonderful fabric for mountain gear. Unfortunately, like Teflon cooking pans, its amazing properties come from a coating with perfluorinated octyl sulfonate, a known endocrine disruptor: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7722801/

The title says this is expanded PTFE, which seems like it wouldn't need an additional PFOTS coating. I doubt it would shed similar small molecules to a PFOTS coating as it's a different material (polymerized tetrafluoroethylene).

I also doubt you would get similar endocrine disruption with PTFE polymerization biproducts since you won't have the "polar head/fluorinated tail" structure that PFOTS has.

Re: Gore-TEX, a lightweight, waterproof fabric made from the expanded form of PTFE

#49

Post by aidenn0 »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #27
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #15

Don't know if it's the same, these days, but when I was more "outdoorsy," having the Gore-TEX™ label on something always at least doubled the price. We usually considered it to be worth it.

I don't see much Gore-Tex(tm) stuff around anymore. I was shopping for some rain gear and I don't think it came up. Are there better materials now or is it just too expensive?

I think the patent expired, so there are knock offs now.

Re: Gore-TEX, a lightweight, waterproof fabric made from the expanded form of PTFE

#50

Post by gorbypark »

exabrial wrote: post #18

I recently learned in order for a product to have the Gore-Tex label, not only do you have to license the process/formula from them, but you have to send engineering samples to them and they perform their own independent testing before allowing you to actually sell the product. There’s no doubt part of the success is the chemistry of the product, but the required independent testing to very high standards also likely…

Not only that, but Gore will honour their “guaranteed to keep you dry” warranty. I had a Gore-Tex jacket that the manufacturer refused to replace after it delaminated about 3 years after I bought it. One call to Gore and I got the purchase price of the jacket in a prepaid credit card sent to me after sending them the jacket.
Post reply on HN