The brand aims to fuse fashion with science to develop a crease-resistant wool fiber which will "prevent felting so that the fabric can be machine washable while retaining wool's natural hygroscopic features"
5/21/2017 | 0
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Showing posts with label technical textiles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technical textiles. Show all posts
Permanent Germ free textile material
Written By Views maker on July 05, 2011 | 7/05/2011
A University researcher has invented a new technology that can inexpensively render medical linens and clothing, face masks, paper towels — and yes, even diapers, intimate apparel and athletic wear, including smelly socks — permanently germ-free. Inventor Jason Locklin is surrounded by his project team; (left) Vikram Dhende, graduate student, and (right) Ian Hardin, a professor in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences.The simple and inexpensive anti-microbial technology works on natural and synthetic materials. The technology can be applied during the manufacturing process or at home, and it doesn’t come out in the wash. Unlike other anti-microbial technologies, repeated applications are unnecessary to maintain effectiveness.
“The spread of pathogens on textiles and plastics is a growing concern, especially in health care facilities and hotels, which are ideal environments for the proliferation and spread of very harmful microorganisms, but also in the home,” said Jason Locklin, the inventor, who is an assistant professor of chemistry in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and on the Faculty of Engineering.
The anti-microbial treatment invented by Locklin, which is available for licensing from the University of Georgia Research Foundation, Inc., effectively kills a wide spectrum of bacteria, yeasts and molds that can cause disease, break down fabrics, create stains and produce odors.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately one of every 20 hospitalized patients will contract a health care-associated infection. Lab coats, scrub suits, uniforms, gowns, gloves and linens are known to harbor the microbes that cause patient infections.
Consumers’ concern about harmful microbes has spurred the market for clothing, undergarments, footwear and home textiles with antimicrobial products. But to be practical, both commercial and consumer anti-microbial products must be inexpensive and lasting.
“Similar technologies are limited by cost of materials, use of noxious chemicals in the application or loss of effectiveness after a few washings,” said Gennaro Gama, UGARF senior technology manager. “Locklin’s technology uses ingeniously simple, inexpensive and scalable chemistry.”
Gama said the technology is simple to apply in the manufacturing of fibers, fabrics, filters and plastics. It also can bestow antimicrobial properties on finished products, such as athletic wear and shoes, and textiles for the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen.
“The advantage of UGARF’s technology over competing methods,” said Gama, “is that the permanent antimicrobial can be applied to a product at any point of the manufacture-sale-use continuum. In contrast, competing technologies require blending of the antimicrobial in the manufacturing process.”
“In addition,” said Gama, “If for some reason the antimicrobial layer is removed from an article—through abrasion, for example—it can be reapplied by simple spraying.”
Other markets for the anti-microbial technology include military apparel and gear, food packaging, plastic furniture, pool toys, medical and dental instrumentation, bandages and plastic items.
Locklin said the antimicrobial was tested against many of the pathogens common in health care settings, including staph, strep, E. coli, pseudomonas and acetinobacter. After just a single application, no bacterial growth was observed on the textile samples added to the culture—even after 24 hours at 37 degrees Celsius.
Moreover, in testing, the treatment remained fully active after multiple hot water laundry cycles, demonstrating the antibacterial does not leach out from the textiles even under harsh conditions. “Leaching could hinder the applicability of this technology in certain industrial segments, such as food packaging, toys, IV bags and tubing, for example,” said Gama.
7/05/2011 | 1
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Luminous textile
Written By Views maker on July 04, 2011 | 7/04/2011
Luminex is a new fabric (non-reflective) that can emit its own light. It is created with threads of every type and nature that emits light in different colors. The luminous fibers used in Luminex are special "detectors of elementary particles" fibers used in the largest scientific experiments of sub-nuclear physics. After numerous attempts and experiments, it's finally possible to integrate a luminous fiber into a fabric, giving it its own brilliance. Very cool. But it will be much cooler when someone actually uses this to make something that actually looks good. Very cool. But it will be much cooler when someone actually uses this to make something that actually looks good.
Because this technology uses electroluminous inks, it can be applied to a wide variety of backings such as plastic, textiles, glass, paper etc. Application of the ink does not affect the properties of the backing, which can then be integrated into other products using adhesives, velcro or sewing.
Luminous textile is a truly flexible way of creating the right atmosphere for a specific space, whatever its function, thanks to the wide range of Kvadrat textiles and broad spectrum of colors in Philips’ LED range. Through integrated LED lights, coupled with the texture of the panels, sound is not only absorbed to create a comfortable working environment but the retail and hospitality experience can also be enhanced through the display of dynamic visual content. It allows for a space to be completely transformed and enables a brand’s identity to really shine through.
Luminous textiles have the potential to satisfy a need for thin and flexible light diffusers for treatment of intraoral cancerous tissue. Plastic optical fibers (POF) with diameters of 250 microns and smaller are used to make the textiles luminous. Usually light is supplied to the optical fiber at both ends. On the textile surface light emission occurs in a woven structure via damaged straight POFs, whereas the embroidered structure radiates the light out of macroscopically bent POFs. We compared the optical properties of these two types of textile diffusers using red light laser for the embroidery and light emitting diode (LED) for the woven structure as light sources, and found efficiencies for the luminous areas of the two samples of 19 % (woven) and 32 % (embroidery), respectively. It was shown that the efficiency can be greatly improved using an aluminium backing. Additional scattering layers lower the fluence rate by around 30 %. To analyse the homogeneity we took a photo of the illuminated surface using a 3CCD camera and found, for both textiles, a slightly skewed distribution of the dark and bright pixels. The interquartile range of brightness distribution of the embroidery is more than double as the woven structure.
Application:
Fashion: Luminous El Tex provides an original hi-tech look for fashion clothes and accessories.
Safety Wear: Luminous EL Tex is the perfect solution for integration in high visibility safety wear.
Decoration: Luminous EL Tex provides an attractive lighting effect, adding to the atmosphere where subdued lighting is appropriate.
Tailor made solutions: Luminous EL Tex is a technology which is highly flexible in both shape and size and can be used in any application which requires a characteristic lighting effect.
7/04/2011 | 0
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Luxicool yarn
Written By Views maker on June 30, 2011 | 6/30/2011
Luxicool® is a brand new cooling yarn developed and produced by Luxilon Industries NV of Belgium. The yarn is registered as a trade mark and patented.
The cooling efficiency is generated by a dual effect:
• excellent thermal conductivity of the polymer
• accelerated evaporation of moisture due to the specific polymer construction
The yarn is a monofilament with natural colour and following available counts :
• 50 den (55 dtex)
• 70 den (77 dtex)
• 100 den (110 dtex)
Applications
Temperature control for sport applications
New opportunities for medical applications :
• fever control
• improved comfort for hospital beds for long term patients
• improved comfort during long term use of orthopaedic bandages
• improved comfort during burn wound treatment
Improved comfort for work wear and military wear.
Applicable in 3D spacer fabrics: under other clothing or layers.
Restrictions
Due to its particular polymer structure it is advised not to exceed 120°C during the use of Luxicool® as yarn or in a fabric. Special surface treatments such as dyeing and coating are not recommended and might influence the cooling effect. Using predyed yarns is here a possible solution.
6/30/2011 | 0
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Nanocoating for Textiles
Written By Views maker on June 06, 2011 | 6/06/2011
Imagine plugging a USB port into a sheet of paper, and turning it into a tablet computer. It might be a stretch, but ideas like this have researchers at North Carolina State Univ. examining the use of conductive nanocoatings on simple textiles.
"Normally, conductive nanocoatings are applied to inorganic materials like silicon. If we can find a way to apply them to textiles it would represent a cost-effective approach and framework for improving current and future types of electronic devices," says Dr. Jesse Jur, assistant professor of textile engineering, chemistry, and science, and lead author of a paper describing the research.
Using a technique called atomic layer deposition, coatings of inorganic materials, typically used in devices such as solar cells, sensors, and microelectronics, were grown on the surface of textiles like woven cotton and nonwoven polypropylene—the same material that goes into reusable grocery store bags. "Imagine coating a textile fabric so that each fiber has the same nanoscale-thick coating that is thousands of times thinner than a human hair—that's what atomic layer deposition is capable of doing," Jur says. The research, done in collaboration with the laboratory of Dr. Gregory Parsons, NC State Alcoa Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, shows that common textile materials can be used for complex electronic devices.
As part of their study, the researchers created a procedure to quantify effective electrical conductivity of conductive coatings on textile materials. The current standard of measuring conductivity uses a four-point probe that applies a current between two probes and senses a voltage between the other two probes. However, these probes were too small and would not give the most accurate reading for measurements on textiles. In the paper, researchers describe a new technique using larger probes that accurately measures the conductivity of the nanocoating. This new system gives researchers a better understanding of how to apply coatings on textiles to turn them into conductive devices.
"We're not expecting to make complex transistors with cotton, but there are simple electronic devices that could benefit by using the lightweight flexibility that some textile materials provide," Jur explains. "Research like this has potential health and monitoring applications since we could potentially create a uniform with cloth sensors embedded in the actual material that could track heart rate, body temperature, movement, and more in real time. To do this now, you would need to stick a bunch of wires throughout the fabric—which would make it bulky and uncomfortable.
"In the world of electronics, smaller and more lightweight is always the ideal. If we can improve the process of how to apply and measure conductive coatings on textiles, we may move the needle in creating devices that have the requisite conductive properties, with all the benefits that using natural textile materials affords us," Jur says.
6/06/2011 | 1
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