In 2015, “smart clothing” flooded the entire textile industry, and information about “smart clothing” was also widespread. Of course, this time is no exception. What I want to share with you is the new fabric used in “smart clothing”.
Recently, a Japanese textile company announced the development of a new type of fabric suitable for “smart clothing.” Wearing “smart clothing” can measure your heartbeat and other physical conditions. The new fabric is in the form of a film and uses conductive materials and resin. It is thinner and more elastic than fiber fabrics from other companies. “Smart clothing” using new fabrics will be used in the sports field and will be on sale as early as 2017.
The new fabric is named “COCOMI”. In addition to the sports field, smart clothing will also be used in fields such as hospital gowns and construction workers’ work clothes, and become popular.
The company improves the conductive materials of electronic components and adds resin to make them into thin films. The thickness is about 0.3 mm, which is only about 1/10 of similar fabrics that have been put into use by other companies. The elasticity can be twice that of existing fabrics. It can also be freely routed on the fabric, which improves the design of the clothing.
Because the new fabric uses materials from electronic components, it can measure more subtle currents than existing fabrics. In addition to heartbeats, it is envisaged that it could also measure electrocardiograms and breathing rates.
In terms of fabrics for smart clothing, at the end of 2014, Japanese sportswear brand Goldwin launched a smart sportswear using the fabric “hitoe” jointly developed by Toray and NTT. Japanese textile company Teijin and Kansai University are also jointly developing a carbon fiber fabric that can sense human body movements and accelerating its commercialization.
Among them, the basic technology of hitoe is the conductive polymer “PEDOT-PSS” that NTT has been developing for a long time. PEDOT-PSS not only has softness, hydrophilicity and a certain strength, but also is biocompatible, so it will not feel uncomfortable even if it is close to the skin. On the other hand, since it is hydrophilic, it has the disadvantage of easily falling off after washing.
Toray’s nanofibers solve this problem: PEDOT-PSS is impregnated into cloth made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fibers with a diameter of only 700nm (PET nanofibers). As a result, PEDOTPSS remains in the fiber and washing resistance is improved. It is said that the diameter of PET fibers used in ordinary clothing is about 15 μm, so PEDOT-PSS will remain on the surface of the fibers and is therefore not resistant to washing. In addition, by using PET nanofibers, the contact area between the fabric and the skin is larger than when using ordinary fibers, so reliable monitoring results can be obtained.
Extended reading: https://www.tpu-ptfe.com/post/7736.html
Extended reading: https://www.china-fire-retardant.com/post/ 9570.html
Extended reading: https://www.alltextile.cn/product /product-73-928.html
Extended reading: https://www. alltextile.cn/product/product-74-725.html
Extended reading: https ://www.alltextile.cn/product/product-34-674.htm
