Sun-charged battery-free glowing blankets repel mosquitoes

March 20, 2026  |  Industry News, Swatches

A conundrum for smart textiles developers is how to combine conductive materials and power sources with soft, flexible textiles. In the new light-emitting fabrics developed by Florida think tank Global Research and Discovery Group (GRDG) and Ashford Textiles®, there are no power cords, batteries or…
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2026 Marine Fabricators Conference blends education, connection

March 1, 2026  |  Swatches

The 2026 Marine Fabricators Conference, which took place Jan. 8–10 at the Hyatt Regency in Savannah, Ga., combined practical education with deep connection—and camaraderie—among fellow fabricators.
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Materials testing for Artemis spacesuit fabrics

March 1, 2026  |  Swatches

As NASA prepared to return to the moon for the Artemis II fly-by and Artemis III’s landing on the South Pole by 2028, researchers and engineers explored the best textile options for spacesuits and boots for use in long-term missions Artemis IV and V. Fabrics must be able to withstand sharp lunar d…
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Next-gen lunar boots R&D

March 1, 2026  |  Swatches

A boot that’s part of a NASA lunar surface spacesuit prototype is readied for testing inside a thermal vacuum chamber at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. The thick aluminum plate at right represents the frigid surface of the lunar South Pole, where Artemis III astronauts will conf…
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TCU students develop protective seams for spacesuits

March 1, 2026  |  Swatches

Four Texas Christian University (TCU) undergraduate students won the 2025 Best Innovation Award at the Technology Collaboration Center Wearables Workshop and University Challenge for their project, “Optimized Suit Environmental Protection Garment Seams.”
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Automated garment deconstruction for recycling used clothing

March 1, 2026  |  Swatches

A major pain point in recycling used clothing is the disassembly of items, such as removing zippers, fasteners and screen-printed areas, which is largely a manual process. A research team at the Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology is developing an automated system to identify and disassemble ga…
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Biodegradable fiber electronics for smart textiles

March 1, 2026  |  Swatches

As wearable electronics proliferate, so potentially will e-waste associated with them. A research team at Seoul National University has developed a fully biodegradable conductive fiber for wearable electronics, especially medical applications.
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Photopolymerization: A room-temperature PFAS-free process

March 1, 2026  |  Swatches

One of the green R&D focuses of the EcoTextile Research Chair at CTT Group in Saint-Hyacinthe, Que., Canada, is energy reduction. At Advanced Textiles Expo last November, researcher/chemist Ahmad Ibrahim, the holder of that position, spoke about work on photopolymerization and how it could be an…
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Circular furniture designs

February 13, 2026  |  Swatches

Modus Furniture, based in the U.K., produces furniture with sustainability in mind, offering a take-back program to ensure pieces have multiple life cycles.
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Stretchy sweat-activated yarn batteries developed for smart fabrics

February 9, 2026  |  Industry News, Swatches

Incorporating sweat-activated batteries into smart fabrics for athletic use may have jumped another hurdle. Researchers at the School of Materials & Energy, Southwest University in China developed a fiber wrapping technique to create these types of batteries in yarns, enabling them to be stretch…
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