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| CSIRO | SOLVE | Issue 4 Aug 05 | |
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ARTICLE
TEXTILES: Now That's a Smart Suit
By David Horwood
Tomorrow’s clothes could have durable electronic circuitry incorporated into the fabric. The ability to weave threads of electronic wizardry into fabric means the IQ of textiles is rising sharply; dressing smartly will soon mean more than merely wearing the latest fashion. And thanks to the efforts of two researchers, smart garments will be tough, too. We have already seen garments boasting inbuilt fashion accessories such as MP3 players and mobile phone keypads. These are impressive, but rely on copper wires being threaded through the cloth after manufacture to conduct the ‘magic’. The next generation of truly gifted garments will get their brains from their very fabric: fine data-conducting polymers that are part of the actual cloth. This will allow sportswear manufacturers, for example, to turn a guernsey into a biomonitoring device to report on an athlete’s performance. But the garments also need to be durable; the electronic wizardry must withstand a garment’s normal stretch and flex and survive the ultimate test – the washing machine. Research by Dr Mark Looney and Peter Waters at CSIRO Textile and Fibre Technology, with the University of Wollongong’s Intelligent Polymer Research Institute, is close to resolving this. They have developed a way of ‘seamlessly’ integrating conducting polymers into the structure of natural and man-made textiles. Their patented process results in a firm bond between the conducting polymer and the fabric. Dr Looney says the electronic circuitry is tightly integrated into the fabric, making it quite resilient. He says the process is also versatile: “We can treat individual fibres, and then knit or weave conductive designs or patterns into the textiles with standard processing systems and machinery. Or we can treat made-up garments.” Either way, the embedded electronic functionality becomes more durable and stable, even surviving the knockabout world of a tumble wash. Textiles produced by the new process have the potential to incorporate an array of communication devices, as well as sensors for temperature, strain, pressure, humidity and chemical attributes. These might be used as barriers to electromagnetic radiation, as antistatic treatments and for providing heating or cooling. The end result is the potential for clothing to be healthier, safer, more comfortable and...infinitely more entertaining.
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