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What is the difference between DANSUI coatings and other water repellents?

Written by Takanori | Jan 24, 2024 7:42:38 AM

DANSUI coating is a re-DWR technology.

Re-DWR means reactivating the DWR of rain jacket that has been degraded by use.

Methods to reactivate DWR are already around us.

We are already familiar with DWR reactivation.

For example, it is well known that water repellents such as waterproof sprays and NIKWAX, and although it may vary from country to country, in Japan, it is well known that water repellency services can be provided at dry cleaners.

Yes, DWR reactivation services already exist.

 

So what is the difference between those and DANSUI coatings?

Are you getting satisfactory DWR by using waterproof sprays or commercial water repellents?

They may be sufficient for some applications. However, for hard mountain climbers, they are often unsatisfactory.

 

Why is this?

In the first place, waterproof sprays and commercial water repellents cannot restore the original DWR performance.

This is because the original DWR performance, or DWR in the production process, is a very different process from them. Waterproofing sprays and commercial water repellents are designed to be completed using only household equipment, without the need for special machinery or tools.

 

I would like to add, it is not that waterproofing sprays and commercial water repellents are not excellent, they are able to do the DWR process without requiring any tools and deliver adequate performance for many people. This is a great technology. However, there is inevitably a limitation that the processing must be done without the need for any tools. I would say that eliminating this constraint would open up even more possibilities.

 

One might think that the same production process should be followed. Unfortunately, that is not possible. In the production process, the fabric is rolled and DWR processed, and later formed into garments. The garment is damaged by the production process when it is already in the garment state.

 

We need to be creative to achieve the same performance as the production process in the garment state.

We found them through many failures.

Fortunately, we had a lot of Gore-Tex and other rain jacket used for rentals in Japan, as we had a rental service for climbing Mt. Using these as material for R&D, we explored the technology while ruining over 100 pieces of rain jacket.

 

The technology thus created is the DANSUI coating.

Our technology cannot be achieved with a water repellent agent alone. The water-repellent agent is important, and the machine is also special. Above all, the person who handles it must also be a craftsman.

 

We have chosen to sell DWR treatment at a specialized factory because we believe that it is difficult to achieve performance with a service that sells only water repellent. This is very troublesome and costly for the user, especially in terms of shipping costs. However, we thought it was the best way to achieve high DWR performance.

 

The decrease in DWR performance due to PFC-free has made maintenance even more important. Some people may feel why recent DWRs are quickly declining, we are working hard in research and development every day to continue developing the technology and deliver satisfactory DWR performance despite the PFC-free.