NuSkin: Sunfeng's bionic textile revolution

Unbelivable but true: the story of this textile revolution began in 1961 with the Merkur construction kit, which was actually intended for children. The Czech chem-ist Otto Wichterle used it to build an apparatus with which he could manufacture contact lenses from the biocompatible material hydrogel. It was the beginning of the success story of modern, soft contact lenses.

From this start, the natural hydrogel found other useful areas of application: Whether in medicine, for implants or in the production of tissue for wireless, soft robots. In 2020, the Chinese company Sunfeng, in collaboration with an international team of scientists, finally developed a solution to use the extraordinary properties of this material for sports textiles. This is how the NuSkin skin-touch coating tech-nology was born, which can be used on fine nylon or polyester fabrics.

The advantages of this textile revolution are overwhelming: Due to its nanoporous, 3D network structure, the clothing is exceptionally breathable. In addition, the moisture management due to the adjustable porosity of the tissue can be compared with that of natural skin structures. The new fabric manages moisture more evenly and finely than any other coating, thus creating a natural biotic balance.

It works like this: Due to its hydrophilic properties, NuSkin swells or shrinks slightly when the humidity changes. The shrinkage causes the pores to become larger in order to achieve perfect ventilation and moisture removal when the outside humid-ity is low. When it rains, the material swells and shrinks the pores in order to achieve a waterproof and heat-insulating effect when it rains.

The elasticity and shape memory ensure that the textiles feel extremely comforta-ble on the skin. The new material is also very durable. All of these multifunctional properties ensure that NuSkin is perfect for sporty, urban athleisure clothing and down jackets.

Particularly important: the new material is not only biocompatible but also eco-friendly. The water content of NuSki Hydrogel is comparatively high, which means that the structure is more similar to natural body tissues than synthetic ones. The soft, pleasant surface significantly reduces the possibility of irritation. In the pro-duction of NuSkin, environmentally friendly fabrics have been selected from re-search and development positioned to prevent the use of harmful DMF and formal-dehyde.

The extraordinary properties of the new material were proven by a spectacular ex-periment: fish were able to survive permanently in a water tank penetrated by NuSkin because the exchange of air was guaranteed at all times.