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Advances in High Tech Polymer Fibres and Smart Fabrics

According to new analysis from Frost & Sullivan, the convergence of textiles, chemical engineering, materials and electronics is likely to lead to the evolution of the next generation of smart fibres and fabrics that can genuinely act in an intelligent manner.

A report, 'Advances in High Tech Polymer Fibres and Smart Fabrics', states that on-going developments in the field of smart fabrics hold out tremendous potential for the concept, promising their use in the likes of healthcare applications (remotely monitoring health parameters), security (detecting danger and calling for help), and display of helpful data (communication through Internet or communication between people).

R Srimathy, a Frost and Sullivan Research Analyst, comments: "Smart fabrics/textiles comprise of smart materials and structures that sense and react to external environmental conditions and can alter their own state and functionality. Potential applications for these innovative textiles include building flexible sensing systems, detection of chemicals, gases and generation of mobile power, among others."

Furthermore, the gamut of applications could widen ever further once industry experts enable these textiles to carry data and power. Realising this, researchers and scientists across the globe are working toward using light as the power source for wearables. Researchers from the University of Stuttgart, Germany, have developed innovative synthetic fibres that generate electricity when exposed to light. Researchers believe that the fibres could be woven into washable clothes.

Nanotechnology is another area that is driving the development of smart textiles while continuing to provide the necessary impetus for research in this sector. Fibres based on carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are said to be the ultimate textile fibre, having a useful blend of properties. These fibres are fine, approximately one nanometre in size, very strong, light in weight, have high specific strength and are electrically and thermally conductive.

Indeed, ultra-strong CNT fibres made of lightweight CNTs, developed by Los Alamos scientist Yuntian Zhu, are said to be tougher than diamonds and one-ten-thousandth of a human hair in diameter. The company has named these ultra-strong CNT fibres as Superthread. Researchers envision the use of these materials in airplanes, automobiles, and sports equipment. Other applications include bulletproof vests, electronic devices and artificial limbs.

Notwithstanding such progresses in technology, development of products using smart textile technology remains highly expensive, demanding enormous R&D spending. This cost factor is a major barrier to ensuring their affordability and will continue to remain unaddressed until there is a mass acceptance of products using this technology.

Srimathy states: "In addition to price concerns, issues related to the durability and performance of smart fabrics exist. The other notable challenge is the physical integration of fabrics with traditional rigid electronics, which requires new approaches to interface and interconnect designs."

Overall, this sophisticated and complicated technology has now gained entry in the market from research laboratories and is set to have a substantial impact on the textile industry. There is a rapidly growing market for smart fabrics and, in the future, wearables will be seen in biomedical devices, sportswear, communication systems, display technologies, military garments, and sensor networks.

'Advances in High Tech Polymer Fibres and Smart Fabrics' is part of the Technical Insights Subscription service from Frost & Sullivan. It provides an overview of smart fabrics along with key drivers, challenges, advances and ongoing developments related to their various applications. In this research, Frost & Sullivan's expert analysts thoroughly examine smart fabrics used for medical, military, and personal protection applications.

Note for Carbon nanotubes
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are allotropes of carbon. A single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) is a one-atom thick sheet of graphite (called graphene) rolled up into a seamless cylinder with diameter on the order of a nanometer. This results in a nanostructure where the length-to-diameter ratio exceeds 10,000. Such cylindrical carbon molecules have novel properties that make them potentially useful in many applications in nanotechnology, electronics, optics and other fields of materials science. They exhibit extraordinary strength and unique electrical properties, and are efficient conductors of heat. Inorganic nanotubes have also been synthesized.

Nanotubes are members of the fullerene structural family, which also includes buckyballs. Whereas buckyballs are spherical in shape, a nanotube is cylindrical, with at least one end typically capped with a hemisphere of the buckyball structure. Their name is derived from their size, since the diameter of a nanotube is in the order of a few nanometers (approximately 50,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair), while they can be up to several millimeters in length. There are two main types of nanotubes: single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) and multi-walled nanotubes (MWNTs).

The nature of the bonding of a nanotube is described by applied quantum chemistry, specifically, orbital hybridization. The chemical bonding of nanotubes are composed entirely of sp2 bonds, similar to those of graphite. This bonding structure, which is stronger than the sp3 bonds found in diamond, provides the molecules with their unique strength. Nanotubes naturally align themselves into "ropes" held together by Van der Waals forces. Under high pressure, nanotubes can merge together, trading some sp² bonds for sp³ bonds, giving great possibility for producing strong, unlimited-length wires through high-pressure nanotube linking.

About Frost & Sullivan
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