The future of MaterialsGarment IQs: Is "Smart" Our Future?
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It’s always been fashionable to wear the hypothetical heart on your sleeve, but what if your shirt could literally monitor the beat? What if nanotechnology could allow our clothes to filter hazardous gases and kill disease before it had the chance to infect us? With temperature-regulating fabric covering our skin, there would be no need to bundle up in an uncomfortable amount of layers to enjoy a fresh snowfall. The rapidly approaching reality of “smart” clothing means endless possibilities for the future of our world. As technology evolves, becoming more suited to the individual’s needs, intelligent clothing is reflecting these changes.
The idea of integrating circuitry into your everyday clothing may seem preposterous and even dangerous, but the technology is much more sophisticated than it may appear. Though several research groups are taking different approaches to producing an intelligent textile, one of the most popular ways to create electrically-conductive materials is to weave conductive yarn, like copper wrapped in nylon or polyester, throughout the textile to allow an electrical current to interact strictly within the fabric itself, independent of the wearer. The metallic yarn is thin enough that it allows for the flexibility that is necessary for wearable clothing.
Metallic yarn is ideal when weaving circuitry in fabric because it has a high melting point and high ductility, allowing the garments to be constructed and sewn using industrial machinery. These properties are the result of the flexible nature of the atoms as the electrons are able to move freely about the metal. When metal atoms bond, they share metallic covalent intermolecular bonds between positively charged nuclei and delocalised electrons, which require a large amount of energy to break. The atoms in metallic bonds are capable of rolling over each other to form new shapes without breaking the bonds between them. Thus, the metal can be stretched and formed into the desired shape, in this case a wire, without losing any properties of the metal.
AIQ Smart Clothing is one of the companies on the forefront of this technological movement. However, instead of using copper or silver to coat their threads to create conductive material, AIQ is opting to weave yarn directly out of stainless steel, which is electrically conductive. This unique method “guarantees fiber, yarn, and thread functionality and durability after continuous washing, sweating, and/or friction.” This stainless steel yarn is used in the TouchMan gloves, which allow the user to operate a smartphone by knitting the conductive yarn into the fingers of the gloves. The gloves are washable and do not oxidize, making them safe for all users. The yarn is also used in the new ThermoMan clothing, allowing the wearer to evenly heat their body while performing outdoor and water activities. All of AIQ’s innovations are lightweight and durable as well as being machine washable, acting as some of the first truly user-friendly tech/textile products.
The applications for “smart” clothing are staggering. Aside from the obvious cosmetic motivations, such as being able to sync and control the color of your clothing from an app on your phone or charging your smartphone in your pocket, computerized garments offer extensive opportunities for advancement in the medical and military fields. In 1996, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology installed sensors into a shirt, allowing doctors to monitor a patient’s breathing, keep track of temperature in specific regions of the body, and register their heartbeat in real time. AIQ has just recently innovated this idea, linking the bio-monitors in the clothing to the Bluetooth on the user’s smartphone, making it easy to keep track of the individual’s data on a computer or handheld device. This very same technology could be used to track vital signs of soldiers on the battlefield, allowing doctors to immediately detect the exact locations of wounds and areas of distress in the body.
Research is also being done to create more “functional” clothing that requires no active role for the consumer. In 2007, a jacket and dress were designed at the Textile Nanotechnology Lab at Cornell University that were capable of killing 99.9999% of bacteria and filtering hazardous gases out of the air. To achieve this, Olivia Ong, the designer, coated nylon and cotton fibers with gold, palladium, and silver nanoparticles. In order to get the particles to bond to the fibers, Ong and her professors induced positive ionization with ammonium- and epoxy-based reactions. This allowed the negatively-charged particles to bond to the fibers. The dress, coated in silver nanoparticles, took on the antibacterial qualities of pure silver, making it possible for the dress to deactivate bacteria and viruses. Infusing the garment with silver reduced the need for regular washing, due not only to its antibacterial properties, but also to the fabric’s stain repellant nature that comes from the nanoparticle barrier created when the particles are bonded to the fibers. The extraordinarily small size and tight grouping of the particles prevents dirt and other materials from reaching the fibers themselves.
In October of this year, the first roundtable meeting of the Cornell Institute of Fashion and Design Innovation took place in New York to discuss how best to integrate fashion and function. This meeting was attended by representatives from all corners of the world with the end goal of building strong bonds within the fashion industry to pursue this technological future. “The key is finding that balance of technology, beauty and usability and wrapping it all up into one garment,” said designer Jin Seo.
Our near future may be brighter than ever anticipated. With clothing that can power LED lights or protect us from illness, our closets may soon be stocked with garments that are run by the same technology that powers our smartphones and other gadgets. The fusion of technology and textiles is one step closer to a more advanced tomorrow.
The idea of integrating circuitry into your everyday clothing may seem preposterous and even dangerous, but the technology is much more sophisticated than it may appear. Though several research groups are taking different approaches to producing an intelligent textile, one of the most popular ways to create electrically-conductive materials is to weave conductive yarn, like copper wrapped in nylon or polyester, throughout the textile to allow an electrical current to interact strictly within the fabric itself, independent of the wearer. The metallic yarn is thin enough that it allows for the flexibility that is necessary for wearable clothing.
Metallic yarn is ideal when weaving circuitry in fabric because it has a high melting point and high ductility, allowing the garments to be constructed and sewn using industrial machinery. These properties are the result of the flexible nature of the atoms as the electrons are able to move freely about the metal. When metal atoms bond, they share metallic covalent intermolecular bonds between positively charged nuclei and delocalised electrons, which require a large amount of energy to break. The atoms in metallic bonds are capable of rolling over each other to form new shapes without breaking the bonds between them. Thus, the metal can be stretched and formed into the desired shape, in this case a wire, without losing any properties of the metal.
AIQ Smart Clothing is one of the companies on the forefront of this technological movement. However, instead of using copper or silver to coat their threads to create conductive material, AIQ is opting to weave yarn directly out of stainless steel, which is electrically conductive. This unique method “guarantees fiber, yarn, and thread functionality and durability after continuous washing, sweating, and/or friction.” This stainless steel yarn is used in the TouchMan gloves, which allow the user to operate a smartphone by knitting the conductive yarn into the fingers of the gloves. The gloves are washable and do not oxidize, making them safe for all users. The yarn is also used in the new ThermoMan clothing, allowing the wearer to evenly heat their body while performing outdoor and water activities. All of AIQ’s innovations are lightweight and durable as well as being machine washable, acting as some of the first truly user-friendly tech/textile products.
The applications for “smart” clothing are staggering. Aside from the obvious cosmetic motivations, such as being able to sync and control the color of your clothing from an app on your phone or charging your smartphone in your pocket, computerized garments offer extensive opportunities for advancement in the medical and military fields. In 1996, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology installed sensors into a shirt, allowing doctors to monitor a patient’s breathing, keep track of temperature in specific regions of the body, and register their heartbeat in real time. AIQ has just recently innovated this idea, linking the bio-monitors in the clothing to the Bluetooth on the user’s smartphone, making it easy to keep track of the individual’s data on a computer or handheld device. This very same technology could be used to track vital signs of soldiers on the battlefield, allowing doctors to immediately detect the exact locations of wounds and areas of distress in the body.
Research is also being done to create more “functional” clothing that requires no active role for the consumer. In 2007, a jacket and dress were designed at the Textile Nanotechnology Lab at Cornell University that were capable of killing 99.9999% of bacteria and filtering hazardous gases out of the air. To achieve this, Olivia Ong, the designer, coated nylon and cotton fibers with gold, palladium, and silver nanoparticles. In order to get the particles to bond to the fibers, Ong and her professors induced positive ionization with ammonium- and epoxy-based reactions. This allowed the negatively-charged particles to bond to the fibers. The dress, coated in silver nanoparticles, took on the antibacterial qualities of pure silver, making it possible for the dress to deactivate bacteria and viruses. Infusing the garment with silver reduced the need for regular washing, due not only to its antibacterial properties, but also to the fabric’s stain repellant nature that comes from the nanoparticle barrier created when the particles are bonded to the fibers. The extraordinarily small size and tight grouping of the particles prevents dirt and other materials from reaching the fibers themselves.
In October of this year, the first roundtable meeting of the Cornell Institute of Fashion and Design Innovation took place in New York to discuss how best to integrate fashion and function. This meeting was attended by representatives from all corners of the world with the end goal of building strong bonds within the fashion industry to pursue this technological future. “The key is finding that balance of technology, beauty and usability and wrapping it all up into one garment,” said designer Jin Seo.
Our near future may be brighter than ever anticipated. With clothing that can power LED lights or protect us from illness, our closets may soon be stocked with garments that are run by the same technology that powers our smartphones and other gadgets. The fusion of technology and textiles is one step closer to a more advanced tomorrow.