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Innovations in smart textiles
March 1st, 2025
Sofía Guridi presenting her work on bio-based and biodegradable e-textile capacitive sensors during the E-Textiles 2024 international conference in Berlin, Germany. Image: Marie O’Mahony, Ph.D. Though 2024, like any year, was imperfect, it saw progress in smart textiles research, sustainability efforts and product development, especially in areas focused on solving problems in the health care […]
Researchers test heat-reactiveness of fabric
June 1st, 2023
The different patterns created for the materials testing. Photos: Aalto Research into reactive textiles goes on around the world. At Aalto University in Finland, researchers have developed textiles that change shape when they heat up, thanks to weaving in liquid crystalline elastomers (LCEs). The work was done in collaboration with the University of Cambridge in […]
Students develop a sun-powered jacket
April 1st, 2023
In a program called “The Wardrobe of the Future,” students at Finland’s Aalto University are experimenting with the development of photovoltaics in garments. There are many smart textile and e-textile applications already widely used, but the sensors, devices and visual effects that are added into these products need a power source—and that typically comes from […]
Leather made from flowers
February 1st, 2023
“Flaux” is a new leather-like, textile material that uses waste from commercially produced flowers as its main ingredient and dye. When Irene Purasachit was a design student at Aalto University in Finland, she began to reflect on the aftermath of wedding ceremonies in her home country of Thailand, where flowers ended up in trash piles […]
Fluff Stuff
November 1st, 2022
Typha latifolia, or broadleaf cattail, grows in Finland’s peatlands. Photo: Petri Tapola When it comes to providing warmth, textile products are routinely filled with unsustainable filling materials such as down feathers or polyester fibers. Master’s degree students at Helsinki’s Aalto University, have created a process that replaces those textile fillings with a natural alternative while […]
Sun-powered textiles
January 1st, 2022
In this prototype jacket from the Sun-Powered Textile Project a “porous” textile is laminated to commercially available solar cells, The energy-autonomous product can generate its own energy by using light as a renewable energy source. In addition to sunlight, it can also generate energy from artificial light. Photos: Anne Kinnunen. Researchers at Aalto University in […]