Colorado-based Vroomi just came up with a single-layer waterproof breathable membrane, touted as the biggest fabric advance in 40 years. Here's an article:
http://www.wired.com/2015/02/voormi-core-technology/
Here's an excerpt:
Voormi’s new technique gets rid of the lamination altogether. “Rather than glue a membrane to a fabric, we put the membrane into a knitting machine, knitting a yarn in and around and through the membrane, so we get a single-layer textile with a (membrane) core that’s constructed in the process,” says Smith. “It’s an entirely new platform.”
But wait: won’t punching millions of thread holes make the membrane into a sieve? That’s the alchemic moment. In a step Voormi won’t disclose, Smith says the company found a way to reconstitute the integrity of the membrane after the knitting process.
Smith also claims that Voormi can “tune” the membrane’s properties—the balance of waterproofness versus breathability, which is a function of the size of the pores in a membrane. If they’re designing a fabric for a cold but dry environment, like Voormi’s Colorado home, “maybe we cure the membrane back to 70 percent of its waterproofness,” he says. “The ability to custom-balance that level is part of the engineering.”
