smart conductive textiles - national physical laboratory · there is an increasing demand for smart...
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Exciting opportunities with Smart TextilesSmart textiles and wearable technology have the potential to change the way we manage our health, respond to emergency, communicate and entertain ourselves. There is an increasing demand for smart fabrics and interactive textiles. The US market alone for smart fabrics is predicted to reach $1.8 billion by 2015 according to a new report by Global Industry Analysts, Inc.
Applications• Wearable sensors and antennas: assisted living, military,
data capture and feedback• Health and emergency: Physiological monitoring and triage• Leisure and fashion• Sports: Performance monitoring• Medical applications: Antibacterial (surgical masks,
wound dressing)
NPL Smart TextileA unique technique has been developed at NPL (patent applied for) to coat individual � bres to a thickness of 20 nm with silver. The resulting fabric is � exible and stretchable textile. The conductive silver layer fully encapsulates � bres, has good adhesion, excellent conductivity and in addition has antibacterial properties due to the presence of silver (Figures 1 & 2).
Smart Conductive TextilesChris Hunt, R. Ashayer-Soltani, Owen Thomas
National Physical Laboratory, Hampton Road, Teddington, Middlesex, TW11 0LW, [email protected]
www.npl.co.uk
Advantages• Additive conductor technology for textiles• Highly conductive fabric. (ρ = 0.188Ω/sq)• High level of � exibility in the fabric following metallisation.• Can be used on large areas• Can print tracks and complex designs• Good washability ~ 50 cycles with acceptable change in resistance• Stretchable fabrics retains conductivity even with stretching• Di� erent metals can be used• Interconnecting pad
Conclusion• Smart textiles will play a part in the wearable
technology revolution• Conductive fabric with a low resistivity of less than 0.2 Ω/sq
can be fabricated• Patterning the deposit will permit circuits to be
written on textiles
Stretch nylon fabric processed using NPL technology
Polyester Lycra
The graph (left) shows the e� ect of stretching on resistance on the textile. This e� ect can be used as a sensor.
Figure 1. Smart Fabric Figure 2. SEM image of nanosilver coated fabric
Figure 3. Fabric: a) Knitted b) Woven
(a) (b)Above: examples of modi� ed textiles
• Knitted textiles are stretchable (Figure 3a)
• Knitting is demanding of metal containing yarns
• Additive process to apply metal layer
10 µm 200 nm
1 µm