An international research team led by the University of Cambridge has developed a cost-effective and eco-friendly method for producing smart textiles using industrial looms. This technique enables the creation of flexible, durable smart fabrics with no size or shape limitations, offering potential applications across various industries.
Researchers have developed next-generation smart textiles – incorporating LEDs, sensors, energy harvesting, and storage – that can be produced inexpensively, in any shape or size, using the same machines used to make the clothing we wear every day.
The international team, led by the University of Cambridge, have previously demonstrated that woven displays can be made at large sizes, but these earlier examples were made using specialized manual laboratory equipment. Other smart textiles can be manufactured in specialized microelectronic fabrication facilities, but these are highly expensive and produce large volumes of waste.
However, the team found that flexible displays and smart fabrics can be made much more cheaply, and more sustainably, by weaving electronic, optoelectronic, sensing and energy fiber components on the same industrial looms used to make conventional textiles. Their results, reported in the journal Science Advances, demonstrate how smart textiles could be an alternative to larger electronics in sectors including automotive, electronics, fashion and construction.
Despite recent progress in the development of smart textiles, their functionality, dimensions and shapes have been limited by current manufacturing processes.
“We could make these textiles in specialized microelectronics facilities, but these require billions of pounds of investment,” said Dr. Sanghyo Lee from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering, the paper’s first author. “In addition, manufacturing smart textiles in this way is highly limited, since everything has to be made on the same rigid wafers used to make integrated circuits, so the maximum size we can get is about 30 centimeters in diameter.”
“Smart textiles have also been limited by their lack of practicality,” said Dr. Luigi Occhipinti, also from the Department of Engineering, who co-led the research. “You think of the sort of bending, stretching and folding that normal fabrics have to withstand, and it’s been a challenge to incorporate that same durability into smart textiles.”
Last year, some of the same researchers showed that if the fibers used in smart textiles were coated with materials that can withstand stretching, they could be compatible with conventional weaving processes. Using this technique, they produced a 46-inch woven demonstrator display.
Now, the researchers have shown that smart textiles can be made using automated processes, with no limits on their size or shape. Multiple types of fiber devices, including energy storage devices, light-emitting diodes, and transistors were fabricated, encapsulated, and mixed with conventional fibers, either synthetic or natural, to build smart textiles by automated weaving. The fiber devices were interconnected by an automated laser welding method with electrically conductive adhesive.
The processes were all optimized to minimize damage to the electronic components, which in turn made the smart textiles durable enough to withstand the stretching of an industrial weaving machine. The encapsulation method was developed to consider the functionality of the fiber devices, and the mechanical force and thermal energy were investigated systematically to achieve the automated weaving and laser-based interconnection, respectively.
The research team, working in partnership with textile manufacturers, were able to produce test patches of smart textiles of roughly 50×50 centimeters, although this can be scaled up to larger dimensions and produced in large volumes.
Now, the researchers have shown that smart textiles can be made using automated processes, with no limits on their size or shape. Multiple types of fiber devices, including energy storage devices, light-emitting diodes, and transistors were fabricated, encapsulated, and mixed with conventional fibers, either synthetic or natural, to build smart textiles by automated weaving. The fiber devices were interconnected by an automated laser welding method with electrically conductive adhesive.
The processes were all optimized to minimize damage to the electronic components, which in turn made the smart textiles durable enough to withstand the stretching of an industrial weaving machine. The encapsulation method was developed to consider the functionality of the fiber devices, and the mechanical force and thermal energy were investigated systematically to achieve the automated weaving and laser-based interconnection, respectively.
The research team, working in partnership with textile manufacturers, were able to produce test patches of smart textiles of roughly 50×50 centimeters, although this can be scaled up to larger dimensions and produced in large volumes.
This article was originally posted by: SciTechDaily