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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 […]
SMART ePANTS program works on computerized clothing
December 1st, 2024
Innovative technological advances sometimes require intensive research and partnership efforts with years of dedicated government funding. Such a program in the smart textiles area is the SMART ePANTS program, which stands for the Smart Electrically Powered and Networked Textile Systems. Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) launched the program last year. Its goals include creating […]
Looking back, looking ahead: Textile industry trends
April 1st, 2024
The German Institutes of Textile and Fiber Research Denkendorf (DITF) use a continuous coating line and thermoplastic processing methods to coat cellulose-based nonwoven fabrics with lignin compounds. Image: DITF A political, economic, social, technology (PEST) analysis on the smart and advanced textile industry for 2023 would likely show that “P” dominated, as politics has affected all […]
Textiles in protection from bioagents, chemical warfare
February 1st, 2024
A scanning electron microscope image showing a close-up of a metal-organic framework/polyethylene terephthalate fiber composite. Image: Northwestern University The medical and military industries are both in need of fabrics that offer protection against biological threats in health care environments and, for warfighters, the threat posed by chemical warfare. The challenges faced are complex; protection against […]
Providing your own power
January 1st, 2022
Biofuel cells harvesting energy from sweat, part of a wearable microgrid developed at the Center for Wearable Sensors, UC San Diego. Photo: Lu Yin. Power and efficiency are important drivers in energy harvesting technology for e-textiles, but there is much more to consider. Bulk, weight, flexibility, sustainability, ease of integration and scalability are also among […]
New solutions in solar shade
October 1st, 2021
The SoFi Stadium’s ETFE roof provides a “fifth dimension” with an LED system embedded into the ETFE to project images and show live events from inside the stadium. These images can be seen from the air by the more than 80 million passengers traveling through the Los Angeles International Airport annually without sacrificing the transparency […]
Advanced textiles rocketing into the future
August 1st, 2021
During a spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Aug. 22, 2019, astronaut Nick Hague debuted the Artemis program identity in space. Hague and fellow crewmember Andrew Morgan installed the second International Docking Adapter on the complex to enable commercial spacecraft from Boeing and SpaceX to carry astronauts to the station. NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration […]
DITF celebrates 100 years of textile innovation
June 1st, 2021
The German Institutes of Textile and Fiber Research (DITF) is the largest textile research center in Europe, with roots that go back 100 years to the first German Research Institute for the Textile Industry, established in Reutlingen in 1921. As the institute expanded to additional locations in Stuttgart and Denkendorf, it merged in 1979 to […]
Electric and solar vehicles drive the future of automotive textiles
May 1st, 2021
BMW’s future interactive car interior (2020) is designed with BYBORRE textiles featuring the i Interaction EASE cabin, which uses smart surfaces that transform into three modes of experience: exploration, entertainment and ease. Photo: BYBORRE. Marie O’Mahony and Debra Cobb contributed content to this article. Recent reports illuminate key factors that will influence the automotive textiles […]
Commercial viability boosts the visibility of wearable technology
January 1st, 2021
The Berlin-based startup Boltware collaborated with H&M Lab in Germany to create a denim jacket that uses sensing technology to give the wearer the feeling of being touched by a loved one. Photo: Boltware. by Marie O’Mahony In the midst of the reworking of so many segments of the textile industry due to the pandemic, […]