Patent ID: 8575045

Claim:
An article comprising a fabric having increased resistance to puncture wherein the fabric comprises: a plurality of polymeric fibers, wherein said fibers have in a native state a number of native surface reactive moieties, said fibers being activated to have a plurality of surface activated reactive moieties, said plurality of surface activated reactive moieties being greater than the number of native surface reactive moieties; a plurality of particles comprising particles having a size ranging from 2 to 1000 nanometers linear dimension along the long axis of the particle; and at least one coupling agent intermediate between a particle and a fiber, said coupling agent forming a first covalent bond to one of said plurality of surface activated reactive moieties and a second covalent bond to said particles to covalently bond a plurality of particles to a fiber, wherein the plurality of particles that are covalently bound to the fibers of the fabric impart to the fabric increased resistance to puncture.