ABSTRACT
Nowadays, there are different types of protective clothing that some of these are disposable and non-disposable. The simplest and most preliminary of this equipment is made from rubber or plastic that is completely impervious to hazardous substances. Unfortunately, these materials are also impervious to air and water vapor, and thus retain body heat, exposing their wearer to heat stress which can build quite rapidly to a dangerous level. Another approach to protective clothing is incorporating activated carbon into multilayer fabric in order to absorb toxic vapors from environment and prevent penetration to the skin. The use of activated carbon is considered only a short term solution because it loses its effectiveness upon exposure to sweat and moisture. The use of semi-permeable membranes as a constituent of the protective material is another approach. In this way, reactive chemical decontaminants encapsulates in microparticles or fills in microporous hollow fibers and then coats onto fabric. The microparticle or fiber walls are permeable to toxic vapors, but impermeable to decontaminants, so that the toxic agents diffuse selectively into them and neutralize. Generally, a negative relationship always exists between thermal comfort and protection performance for currently available protective clothing. Thus, there still exists a very real demand for improved protective clothing that can offer acceptable levels of impermeability to highly toxic pollutions of low molecular weight, while minimizing wearer discomfort and heat stress.
