Disseminators. Sensors. Make Room in Your Closet for Smart Clothes and e-Textiles. Your LBD (little black dress) is about to be joined in your closet by a SWD (smart wearable device). The worlds of electronics and textiles are becoming interwoven and the results are going to profoundly impact your health. Here’s what you need to know about e-textiles and smart fabrics and a preview of the clothes, shoes, and accessories that may soon find their way into your closet. E-Fashionista Vocabulary Just when you thought you’d finally gotten a handle on terms like ruching, GORE-TEX, and tulle, along comes a whole new fashion lexicon. Forget about SmartWool.
We now have smart fabrics and smart clothes. E-textile is short for electronic- or electro- textile. Smart fabrics are generally defined as, well, smart. Smart clothes and e-textiles offer a second skin to help you understand what goes on under your real skin. The sensors can detect an amazing range of physiological stimuli from you and your surrounding environment. Smarty pants: Printing biometric sensors on underwear.
Innovators. Memristor memory could be used in wearable electronics. Researchers in South Korea are the first to make a bendable digital memory that can store data without constant power. Such memories could find applications in electronic paper for more comfortable reading and in wearable computers, which could be used in medical monitoring and treatment. A memristor "remembers" the amount of charge that has flowed through it, with the information being stored in terms of the device's resistance. While the concept of the memristor was first proposed in 1971, it was not until 2008 that the first practical device was made. Since then, several research groups have explored the development of flexible memories by placing memristors in cross-point configurations. Two arrays of parallel metal lines are placed one on top of the other in a grid; where the lines cross, they are connected with a memristor.
Enriched with oxygen Switching the polarity of the electrodes causes the positive top electrode to draw the oxygen back out. Simple, but flawed "Crucial step" Create Outstanding Lighting Effects using EL Wire. Electroluminescence (EL wire) makes you see any project in a different light – quite literally. If you jump over to our section on LED hacks you will agree that a well lit project is incredibly appealing.
While LEDs add a cheap, efficient way to add that extra kick to a project, sometimes you have to take it a step further with the magic of EL Wire (can be purchased pretty cheap on eBay). EL Wire is basically light in a tube which can be bent and formed to fit virtually any surface. This is why it’s extremely popular to be sewn into clothing. El Wire Project Slideshow: EL projects are very easy to put together. Thus, we leave you with a few of our EL Wire projects and video walkthough: Could 'Smart' Textiles Prove Toxic? International Fashion MachinesA fabric that incorporates conductive yarns, thermochromic inks and drive electronics.
The growing practice of weaving electronics into the fiber of clothing could add to the already monumental challenge of e-waste disposal. Some fifty million tons of electronic waste already accumulate annually in “soaring mountains” of refuse, the United Nations says. United Nations University“Backyard recyclers” burn discards to extract trace materials in Ghana. As a Science Times article on wired textiles recently noted, electronic or “smart” textiles have electronics in the very weave of their fabric, enabling clothing to respond in various ways to the environment and to function as electronic devices, like mobile phones or heart-rate monitors. With their social and commercial promise, e-textiles, also known as smart textiles, are the focus of intense laboratory development and testing. Interviewing designers, engineers and policy makers about e-textile disposal, Mr. Mr. Bibliographic data. Nanotube springs make skin-like sensor. Researchers at Stanford University in the US have discovered a type of highly elastic, transparent thin film that conducts electricity extremely well.
The film is made of wavy, spring-like carbon nanotubes and could be used as the electrode material in "skin-like" pressure and stretch sensors. Such devices might one day be used to help restore touch and pressure sensitivity to amputees, injured soldiers and burn victims, and also find applications in robotics and touch-sensitive computer displays, says the team.
Zhenan Bao and colleagues made their transparent elastic films by airbrushing a solution of carbon nanotubes onto the top and bottom surface of a flat silicone sheet. After coating, the researchers stretched the sheet. When the sheet then relaxed, the nanotubes naturally formed wavy, spring-like structures. These structures act as electrodes that can accurately measure the amount of force applied to the material. Other applications.
Research Lab. AUTO.