Photo-polymerized trifunctional acrylate resin/magnesium hydroxide fluids/cotton fabric composites with enhancing mechanical and moisture barrier properties

In this paper, a facile and environmentally friendly approach was used to prepare acrylate resin-based cotton fabric composites via adding reactive Mg (OH) 2 fluids (MHFs) into trimethylolpropane triacrylate (TPT) monomer followed by coating on the cotton fabrics by photo-polymerization. The morphology, thermal stability, rheological behavior, and mechanical properties of polymer composites are systematically characterized by various technologies. Mechanical test results demonstrates that tensile strength and young’s modulus of the polymer composites are as high as 46 MPa and 1440.27 MPa, respectively, which is 3.5 and 9.1 times that of polymer composite in the absent of MHFs meanwhile without sacrificing the toughness. Moreover, it is amazingly found that the addition of MHFs can effectively reduce water vapor transmission rate of composite. Herein, these advantages of MHFs can be easily applied as encapsulation layer in the field of smart cotton fabric and electrical device. Graphical abstract The addition of reactive Mg(OH) 2 fluids into trifunctional acrylate could achieve excellent mechanical and moisture barrier properties of polymer composite.