“Having a mix of people from different
backgrounds and with different experiences
that can complement each other is key.”
—Mats Johansson, Smart Textiles, Borås, Sweden
The team members quickly determined they
would have no problem creating conductive
materials and sound-producing signals—if they
only wanted to hide the electronics inside the
tablecloth. “A lot of smart textiles are really just
electronics added to textiles,” Mr. Johansson says.
“But we wanted to make textile materials that are
conductive.” So the team used knitted constructions of metal yarn for the drum parts and printed
piano keys, and then evaluated various materials’
conductivity during the testing phase.
The tests revealed that the tablecloth material’s
polymers had to be adjusted so it could be foldable
and washable. In February, after two months of
testing, the final product fulfilled Smart Textile’s
objective of using only textiles or textile technology.
Infection-Fighting Fibers
A project within a US$1.5 million initiative led
by the Center for Research in Applied Chemistry
(CIQA) in Saltillo, Mexico and the University
of Guanajuato in Guanajuato, Mexico also has
healthcare implications: It introduces antimicrobial
nanoparticles into textile fibers used in hospital
fabrics. “We want to prevent people going to
hospitals and acquiring infections,” says Carlos
Alberto Ávila-Orta, PhD, researcher in the
department of advanced materials, CIQA.
Like the Smart Textiles initiative, CIQA
had to assemble team members with the
right sets of expertise (the team included
bacteriologists, polymer scientists and
chemical engineers). “Assigning the right
roles to the right team members was a
large part of our success,” Dr. Ávila-Orta
says, “along with robust project planning
and tracking.”
When the eight-year project launched in
2007, the team first had to devise a method
to fully disperse the nanoparticles (which
protect against microbes) into thermoplastic
polymers, such as polyester and nylon. Full
dispersion of the particles allows fabric to be
processed, setting the stage for mass production.
Greater dispersion also drives down the cost of fabric
production because fewer nanoparticles are needed.
During initial tests, the CIQA team members
found they weren’t achieving an adequate dis-
persion of the nanoparticles. So they decided to
change the ultrasound frequencies typically used
for polymer melts. Drawing from his diverse
team’s expertise, Dr. Ávila-Orta successfully chal-
lenged the orthodoxy. “We asked, why not use
different frequencies? And when we used different
frequencies, we had a much better dispersion,” he
says. “That was our innovation.” —Novid Parsi
This Levi’s jacket can wirelessly
help people access their phone
or favorite mobile apps just by
touching the sleeve.
Source: Accenture
Technology Vision 2016
Portion of
the global
economy
based on
digital
activities
such as
e-business
and
e-commerce
by 2020—
up from
22%
in 2015.
