The Fabric

Feb 16, 2018

In Brief The smart fabrics currently available make for rather uncomfortable garments. A new textile-creation process based on a modified version of classical electro-spinning could change that. The past couple of decades gave rise to smartphones, smart watches, and smart homes. Now, researchers are looking for ways to make smart clothing . To do that, they need a smart fabric that can conduct electricity , but the textiles they’ve come up with thus far don’t breathe well and are rigid. They’re uncomfortable, and this inhibits daily usage. Now, an international team of researchers has found a way to produce electrically conductive textiles that behave more like the ones we’re used to wearing. Their study has been published in npj Flexible Electronics . With Andreas Greiner at the helm, a team of researchers from Germany’s University of Bayreuth and China’s Donghua University and Nanjing Forestry University set out in pursuit of a better smart fabric. They found that, through a special production process, they could create a nonwoven material that was very good at conducting electricity without compromising on comfort. Unlike the process used to produce most smart fabrics, the team didn’t insert metal wires into a textile after it was already made. Instead, they used a modified version of classical electro-spinning — a process that has been used to create nonwovens for many years — to combine short electro-spun polymer fibers with tiny silver wires in a liquid. This mixture was then filtered, dried, and heated for a brief time to produce the smart fabric. The researchers’ material has a number of potential applications. For example, a piece of clothing could be outfitted with solar cells that convert sunlight to warmth, heating up the garment on a cold day. Sensors embedded into athletic attire could track fitness or health metrics and relay them to a paired device. A pair of pants could charge the smartphone stowed in their pocket. The fabric’s utility isn’t limited to clothes, either. In a university press release , Greiner suggested using the material as the seat covering on a plane or in a car. In that instance, passengers could charge their devices without leaving their seat. Anything that incorporates fabric could get a “smart” bump.