New Resist2O Pro technology eliminates the need for conventional topical DWR finishes.
12th October 2026
Innovation in Textiles
| Greensboro, NC, USA
Unifi is moving water resistance from the finishing stage into the yarn itself with a new technology designed to eliminate the need for conventional topical durable water-repellent (DWR) treatments.
The US manufacturer will introduce Resist2O Pro alongside a second new yarn technology, Cofira, at Performance Days in Munich this week (October 13-14).
Resist2O Pro is engineered to minimise water absorption without the use of topical treatments or fluorinated chemistry and can be employed with different methods of fabric formation.
This potentially gives textile manufacturers greater flexibility in developing water-resistant fabrics while removing a separate finishing treatment from the production process.
Unifi says the technology is fluorine-free and PFOA-free – defined as containing less than 5 ppb (parts per billion) – and is targeting applications ranging from apparel and footwear to furnishings and industrial textiles.
The company is also launching Cofira, a yarn designed to combine characteristics normally associated with spun and filament constructions.
Cofira has been developed to provide the aesthetics and handle of a spun yarn while retaining the performance characteristics available from filament yarns. It can be tailored using synthetic, blended and functional fibre technologies to create different fabric properties and effects.
Potential applications include apparel, furnishings, equipment and accessories, and the yarn can also be combined with existing Unifi technologies including AMT (moisture management), ChillSense (cool-to-the-touch properties) and ReFlexx (stretch and recovery).
Cofira is being made available globally in both virgin and Repreve recycled polyester versions, including material incorporating Unifi’s Repreve Takeback textile-to-textile recycling technology.
Repreve versions can be traced using the company’s FiberPrint technology and are available with recycled-content certification including GRS and SCS.
“These new products bring multifunctional capabilities that help reduce complexities associated with high-performance products,” said Unifi CEO Eddie Ingle.
Both technologies will be shown at Performance Days in Munich, where Unifi will exhibit at booth J18. They will subsequently be presented at the Functional Fabric Fair in Portland, Oregon, from October 26-28.
Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, Unifi manufactures synthetic and recycled yarns and is best known for its Repreve recycled fibre platform. The company says Repreve has now converted the equivalent of more than 46 billion plastic bottles and one billion T-shirts of textile waste into recycled fibre.