The ever-growing textile industry has a few recycling options for waste fabrics to keep end-of-use clothing articles within the value chain. Experiments showcase a new technology that can separate fibres in mixed fabrics.
Recent advances in electroluminescent threads that can be woven or knitted have facilitated the integration of light-emitting textiles on a large scale to include vast arrays of lighting lines or pixels. A versatile tool that can include light-emitting textiles into fashionable and customised crafts directly onto consumer fabrics can be implemented to suit wide-ranging applications.
Scientists in China have taken inspiration from the polar bear's fur to develop an encapsulated aerogel fibre which will allow for weaving and knitting while at the same time being excellent thermal insulators.
Taking a leaf out of nature, scientists have come up with a superhydrophobic spacer fabric that can be produced industrially to remove oil spills from water surfaces in an energy-saving, cost-effective way and without the use of toxic substances.
Plans to integrate fibres into apparel as sensor patches with flexible circuits took a step forward as researchers have come up with a single strand of fibre that has the flexibility of cotton and the electric conductivity of a polymer, called polyaniline.
Researchers from the Vienna University of Technology have developed a tool that measures the amount of elastane present in a garment, paving the way for its segregation/removal from blended textiles, thus making a considerable number of textiles suitable for recycling.
Inspired by nature’s ability to construct a diverse array of functional materials, scientists at the University of Connecticut have developed a method to produce continuously tunable non-toxic materials.
In a potential game-changer for agriculture, Mississippi State University (MSU) scientists have developed a robot that works with camera-based perception system to identify and pluck one cotton boll at a time.
In a first for the world, Korean scientists have developed graphene-based, customised e-textiles that can be manufactured in an environmentally friendly manner, as neither the use of chemicals nor any additional processing is required.
