ADVANTAGES OF THE GTT FINISHING TECHNOLOGY

The unique, GTT ChemStik­® finishing technology offers unique benefits for the apparel brands, the textile manufacturers, and for the individual who purchases performance apparel and footwear. And of course, to Planet Earth.

For the Apparel brand and textile manufacturer, our hydrophobic treatment on fabric and footwear benefits you because:

It works better for water repellency than the conventional C6 or C8 (PFC-based) wet finishing process! Plus:

  • The total operational cost is competitive with "wet" finishing cost;

  • It uses no fluorocarbons or PFCs (perfluorocarbons), meaning the technology of the future is available today;

  • It is "dry", meaning there is less water consumption, less water cost and almost no waste stream;

For the End-user, our treatment benefits you because:

  • Your clothes hold up better to laundry cleaning due to the unique GTT chemistry and application method. This means your clothing lasts longer, look fresher and the treatment lasts longer!

  • You can play sports on a wet or snowy field without having wet feet...

  • You are not unintentionally wearing carcinogenic fluorocarbons;

  • You will see a significant performance improvement in the durable water-repellent treatment (DWR) of your treated apparel and other DWR-treated products.  Unlike other DWR treatments, this one actually lasts the life of the garment!

  • You live on Planet Earth.

For Planet Earth, our treatment benefits you because:

  • Our finishing treatments are "green" and carcinogen-free;

  • Our application method results in nearly no waste or waste stream, uses nearly no water and is energy efficient;

  • It does not contribute to the ever-increasing use of hazardous and nonbiodegradable chemicals;

  • Our finishing treatment is recyclable, and may even be re-applied onto finished garments, so it is sustainable. 

FLUOROCARBON FREE

PFOA = perfluorooctyl acid, a known carcinogen

PFOS = perfluorooctanesulfonic aciD

We hear a lot of claims about textile treatments being "C8" Free... or PFOA-Free or maybe just "environmentally-friendly"... But what does this mean?  

Textiles finished using fluorocarbon-based chemistry have been shown to contain carcinogens. Therefore certain fluorocarbon treatments are being phased out. "C6" is often used as a substitute for the banned "C8" treatment, but this too is also suspect, and may eventually also be banned. This is because certain fluorocarbons are chemically similar to known carcinogens, such as PFOA or PFOS.  The chemical structure of C8 and PFOA is shown below.

Most "C6" fluorocarbon treatment still has certain amounts of C8 in it - and therefore also has PFOA, a known carcinogen. Some use perfluorinated long chain alcohols (perfluorotelomer alcohols) - do you want that against your skin? Would you apply a skin moisturizer that contained a carcinogen? All banned fluorocarbons are harmful. In fact, many scientists believe that C6 is not much better than C8.  It is for this reason that chemical manufacturers are struggling to produce PFC-free products.

Our Evergreen dry process technology does not use fluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons or banned chemicals to provide an even better, high quality finish than what is currently available - and yet does not cost more. Just another reason why the future in textile finishing is green!

At GTT, when we say "Fluorocarbon-Free", we mean there are NO FLUOROCARBONS in our treatment. Period. When we say "Environmentally-Friendly", we mean our treatment does NOT HARM the Environment. When we say "PFOA-free", we mean it is IMPOSSIBLE to have PFOA in our treatment because our treatment is perfluorocarbon-free.

ECO-FRIENDLY TECHNOLOGY

"Eco-Friendly" means the hydrocarbon-based, GTT Evergreen™ Treatment does not contain these or other harmful chemicals - (just a partial list...):

  • chlorinated compounds

  • brominated compounds

  • perfluorinated compounds including C6, C8, PFOA, PFOS

  • telomer compounds including fluorotelomer alcohols

  • formaldehyde

  • pesticides

  • azo dyes

  • chromates or dichromates

  • isocynates

  • organotin compounds

  • cyano compounds including cyanoacrylates

  • dimethylfumanate

  • chlorobenzenes

  • benzene or other aromatic solvents

  • dimethylformamaide

  • chlorinated solvents

  • nanoparticles

  • aromatic amines

  • chlorophenyls

  • bisphenal A

  • heavy metals

  • dioxanes

  • DDT

  • spray can solvents

  • emulsifiers

  • surfactants

  • water (not a harmful chemical, of course... but limited on Planet Earth)

SMART TEXTILES

Would you put your smart phone in the laundry? With dry finishing done the right way, that can be done, though we do not recommend doing that! But, what about biosensors built into apparel for sports training, bio-feedback, or medical diagnostics? Or, just LED lighting for safety and visibility purposes?

We may be speaking of the future, but that's what innovation is all about. With dry finishing, smart textiles just move a bit closer to reality. We want smart textiles to be able to withstand normal laundry cleaning. We want to our extreme durability to merge with our water-free finishing capability. It is the future. 

QA CONTROL

Branded products produced by outside suppliers often vary in quality control - despite the best efforts of the product brand. 

There are operational issues for that - such as cross contamination in finishing baths and variations in chemical pickup with use during manufacturing.

Vendors may also look for increase their margin by skimping on chemicals added to the wet bath... diluting the product quality, while also reducing their operating cost. 

In their case, the branded product suffers and consumers see the difference in quality, but don't realize that it is not brand skimping on the treatment - it is just the vendor for the brand. 

Here, GTT's dry finishing can make a huge difference.  After all, how is it possible for a vendor to dilute the product, when there is no dilution that occurs in dry finishing? Plus, because fresh product is constantly applied to the fabric, wet bath exhaustion, cross contamination and product precipitation can not occur.

The result: better product quality and consistency and better brand protection.  

COUNTERFEIT DETECTION

Having a successful brand takes hard work, time and money.  Consumer confidence is built upon the quality and performance of the brand. 

That also makes the branded product vulnerable to counterfeiting - unscrupulous sellers using your brand name on their shoddy product... That reduces the brand quality and also represents income lost to the counterfeiter. 

Counterfeit products affect almost every industry and textiles are no exception. The annual loss due to counterfeit products is estimated to be over a half trillion dollars! 

The GTT dry finish is designed to help brand manufacturers easily detect counterfeiters.  We may not be able to stop counterfeiters, but we can help brand manufacturers to easily detect a counterfeit product at the dock, on the rack at a retail store, or through a product return. 

This is available for both fabric and footwear and is based upon the unique capabilities of the GTT technology. We can't say here how that is done, but counterfeiters should worry about the GTT technology and how it can be used to stop their illegal trade!