Encapsulation of Electrically Conductive Apparel Fabrics: Effects on Performance

A Review of Electro Conductive Textiles Utilizing the Dip-Coating Technique: Their Functionality, Durability and Sustainability

The presented review summarizes recent studies in the field of electro conductive textiles as an essential part of lightweight and flexible textile-based electronics (so called e-textiles), with the main focus on a relatively simple and low-cost dip-coating technique that can easily be integrated into an existing textile finishing plant. Herein, numerous electro conductive compounds are discussed, including intrinsically conductive polymers, carbon-based materials, metal, and metal-based nanomaterials, as well as their combinations, with their advantages and drawbacks in contributing to the sectors of healthcare, military, security, fitness, entertainment, environmental, and fashion, for applications such as energy harvesting, energy storage, real-time health and human motion monitoring, personal thermal management, Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) shielding, wireless communication, light emitting, tracking, etc. The greatest challenge is related to the wash and wear durability of the conductive compounds and their unreduced performance during the textiles' lifetimes, which includes the action of water, high temperature, detergents, mechanical forces, repeated bending, rubbing, sweat, etc. Besides electrical conductivity, the applied compounds also influence the physical-mechanical, optical, morphological, and comfort properties of textiles, depending on the type and concentration of the compound, the number of applied layers, the process parameters, as well as additional protective coatings. Finally, the sustainability and end-of-life of e-textiles are critically discussed in terms of the circular economy and eco-design, since these aspects are mainly neglected, although e-textile' waste could become a huge problem in the future when their mass production starts.

Development of Stainless Steel Yarn with Embedded Surface Mounted Light Emitting Diodes

The integration of electronic components in/onto conductive textile yarns without compromising textile qualities such as flexibility, conformability, heat and moisture transfer, and wash resistance is essential to ensuring acceptance of electronic textiles. One solution is creating flexible and stretchable conductive yarns that contain tiny surface-mounted electronic elements embedded at the fiber level. The purpose of this work was to manufacture and subsequently evaluate the physical features and electromechanical properties of stainless steel yarn with light-emitting surface mounted devices (SMDs) embedded in it. The SMDs were successfully integrated into a conductive stainless steel yarn (SS) by inserting crimp beads and creating a bond through hot air soldering machines, resulting in what we call an E-yarn. The relationship curves between gauge length and electrical resistance, and the relationship curves between conductive yarn elongation and electrical resistance, were explored experimentally. The results of the analysis demonstrated that E-yarn had a lower tensile strength than the original electrically-conductive SS yarn. The effects of the washing cycle on the conductivity of the E-yarn were also investigated and studied. The results showed that E-yarns encapsulated at the solder pad by heat shrink tube still functioned well after ten machine wash cycles, after which they degraded greatly.