New Technologies In E-Textiles

Car seats that wake up drowsy drivers, bed sheets that monitor your health, socks that let you know when you are about to do a tendon, vests that trigger an emergency beacon if you are dying of exposure - these are all concepts that may not be as far away as you think and were recently discussed at the Electronic textile Workshop held in Geelong.

Textile scientists, polymer chemists, physicists, and bioengineers from around the world met at CSIRO Textile and Fibre Technology not only to dream about the garments and textiles of the future, but also to talk about the technologies that will turn these dreams into reality. CSIRO hopes the meeting will lead to international collaborations.

The workshop explored ways in which the new technologies might be applied. Some of the ideas raised included:

• Smart materials with improved functionality including the ability to sense and react to external conditions (temperature and humidity), communications, light emission and shielding the wearer from radiation.

• Garments that sense temperature and respond by generating heat or contracting to change their warmth or moisture management characteristics.

• Electronic fabrics that protect against hazards posed by low-level electromagnetic radiation.

• Electronic textiles that have potential for reducing noise generated by moving parts.

• Garments that are softer, lighter thinner and more vapour permeable than conventional products providing better protection systems.

• Body suits that monitor your physiological state and communicate to your doctor.

Interactive Electronic Textile Technologies

Electronic textiles can be created by using minute electrically conductive fibers. These metallic fibers have been used for years in various industrial applications for the purpose of controlling static and electromagnetic interference shielding. Today, metallic fibers are finding new applications in the development of electronic textiles. Electrically conductive fibers can be classified into two general categories, those that are naturally conductive and those that are specially treated to create conductivity.

Naturally conductive fibers or metallic fibers are developed from electrically conductive metals such as ferrous alloys, nickel, stainless steel, titanium, aluminum, copper, and carbon. Metal fibers are very thin metal filaments, with diameters ranging from 1 to 80 microns (µm). Officially called a micrometer, a micron (µm) is one thousandth of a millimeter. To illustrate the fineness of a metallic fiber of 1 µm, a comparison can be made between these fibers and the diameter of a strand of human hair which ranges between 70 and 100 µm.

Metallic fibers are typically produced by either using a bundle-drawing process or by a shaving process. The bundle-drawing process consists of bundling several fine metal wires then drawing them continuously and simultaneously from source metals.