subject: Gore-tex - A Membrane Which Changed Outdoor Garments [print this page] You always need some protection in the rainy season and if you do not have a good jacket, you will completely get wet and feel uncomfortable. You need a jacket which can protect you and your clothes from getting wet and you do not have to worry about going out in rainy weather. Sometimes, you will have noticed that your jacket does not let your sweat out and you feel that you are wet from inside. This is when you start feeling uncomfortable. You can very well avoid this situation by having a jacket which uses the Gore-Tex Membrane.
The pores of this membrane are 20000 times smaller then a water droplet, so fluid water will be unable to pass through it, which makes it perfect against rain. But the pores are still bigger than a molecule of water vapor, so it lets human sweat in form of vapor escape through them. These features makes Gore-Tex perfect as a breathable and waterproof material for outdoor garment.
The membrane was developed by Robert W. Gore in 1969. His father and he experimented with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) , which is the main constituent of Teflon. They invented a new method to expand and stretch the PTFE to create the microporous fibre Gore-Tex, also called ePTFE). R. Gore was granted the patent for it in 1976, and since then the people could use the benefits of the waterproof and breathable clothes. Before they had to wear uncomfortable plastic jackets with no breathing abilities.
As everything, Gore-Tex is not the perfect solution. It only works properly, if the difference between the outer and inner temperature (more or less your body temperature) is high enough, to keep the osmotic pressure up. When the outside temperatures hit about 18C the breathable effect of the membrane gets lost. It also depends on the clothes you wear beneath your jacket, as they keep the inner side cooler, which reduces the temperature difference beetwen inner and outer side and so the breathability. The best way to use the jacket is to wear it like a wind shirt with just underwear or a thin t-shirt.
Today many producers use the Gore-Tex membrane to improve their products. The most popular but also most expensive goretex products are from Jack Wolfskin, Mammut or The North Face for example. As already said, these brands are not the cheapest, but you will normaly receive high quality.
But you also have the option to buy a cheaper jacket with similar features, because the patent for Gore-Tex is no longer active. Now there are some other, cheaper membranes from other manufacturers on the market which use the same technique. This also reduces the price for the clothes where these are used on.
