Thermal radiation plays an important role on managing clothing comfort, which is also the main heat dissipation pathway for human body heat transfer. There are two contradictions when traditional ...clothing regulates the human body comfort: clothing is demanded to block extra heat input but hinders human body heat dissipation in hot environment; Clothing prevents heat loss to keep human body warm but is impermeable and high IR emission towards outer space in cold environment. To solve these problems, the recently emerged Personal Radiative Thermal Management (PRTM) technologies have been adopted to fabricate advanced clothing materials, which promote the thermal comfort of wearers and also to alleviate the energy consumption on building heating or cooling. Different from the indoor controllable thermal environment, the outdoor thermal environment is characterized as strong intensity of solar irradiance. Based on the differences for radiation sources between outdoor thermal environment and indoor thermal environment, we comprehensively review the clothing materials composition and nano/microstructures underlying the PRTM strategies to control the heat exchange the human body and the surrounding. Two mechanisms for managing thermal radiation transports including radiative heating and radiative cooling are demonstrated in detail from the perspectives of hot and cold environments. In particular, the review also distinguishes the radiative cooling effect owning to high emittance from the radiative cooling effect due to high transparency. Embodiment of the general PRTM concept on military thermal infrared camouflage is presented. Discussions about the future research trend are also provided, which may be useful for further study and development in these fields, such as energy harvesting, building, fluidic cooling.
Due to recent developments in wearable sensor technology, textile electrodes are routinely being employed in electromyography (EMG) for continuous monitoring of the biosignals from the muscles. ...However, the performance of such smart textile-based health monitoring devices depends on several factors such as, the sensitivity (impedance), durability (reusable/washable), users' comfort ability, integrability, and automatability. In this article we review the characteristics and the performance of the EMG textile electrodes, in the context of functional textile materials, smart textile materials, and smart textile systems for biosignals monitoring. The functional textile materials are confined to signal transmission alone, whereas, the smart textile materials include signal transducers and sensors. The more advanced smart textile systems include signal conditioning circuits with displays. Nowadays, textile-based sensors embedded in garments are becoming a part of users' normal life, in particular, the textile systems that continuously monitor the vital physiological signals from muscles are being sought after in healthcare settings.
The design of a reflective metasurface solely based on flexible textile material is presented for indoor signal coverage enhancement in a specific scenario – reflecting and reallocating radio ...frequency energy that would have leaked through a large window area. The proposed reflective metasurface design, reflective metasurface is composed of layers of square conductive textile patches and dielectric textile substrates. For the unit cell design, a reflective phase difference of up to 90° can be achieved via varying the size of the conductive patches. Meanwhile, a phase difference of up to 180° can be achieved by the alignment of conductive patches on different textile substrate layers, which is an ideal design philosophy for textile material. The proposed metasurface, consisting of 12 × 12 unit cells, can achieve a main reflected beam pointing in the direction of ±35° and a secondary reflected beam at ±63°. Simulated results show that the reflected beams remain relatively stable under the crumpling conditions often seen for curtains. A prototype of the design was fabricated and tested in a real-world scenario. A maximum signal strength enhancement of 15 dB and an average enhancement of 5.97 dB in a wide range of directions can be achieved with the reflective metasurface applied.
In the broad context of Wireless Body Sensor Networks for healthcare and pervasive applications, the design of wearable antennas offers the possibility of ubiquitous monitoring, communication and ...energy harvesting and storage. Specific requirements for wearable antennas are a planar structure and flexible construction materials. Several properties of the materials influence the behaviour of the antenna. For instance, the bandwidth and the efficiency of a planar microstrip antenna are mainly determined by the permittivity and the thickness of the substrate. The use of textiles in wearable antennas requires the characterization of their properties. Specific electrical conductive textiles are available on the market and have been successfully used. Ordinary textile fabrics have been used as substrates. However, little information can be found on the electromagnetic properties of regular textiles. Therefore this paper is mainly focused on the analysis of the dielectric properties of normal fabrics. In general, textiles present a very low dielectric constant that reduces the surface wave losses and increases the impedance bandwidth of the antenna. However, textile materials are constantly exchanging water molecules with the surroundings, which affects their electromagnetic properties. In addition, textile fabrics are porous, anisotropic and compressible materials whose thickness and density might change with low pressures. Therefore it is important to know how these characteristics influence the behaviour of the antenna in order to minimize unwanted effects. This paper presents a survey of the key points for the design and development of textile antennas, from the choice of the textile materials to the framing of the antenna. An analysis of the textile materials that have been used is also presented.
Soft robotics have substantial benefits of safety, adaptability, and cost efficiency compared to conventional rigid robotics. Textiles have applications in soft robotics either as an auxiliary ...material to reinforce the conventional soft material or as an active soft material. Textiles of various types and configurations have been fabricated into key components of soft robotics in adaptable formats. Despite significant advancements, the efficiency and characteristics of textile actuators in practical applications remain unsatisfactory. To address these issues, novel structural and material designs as well as new textile technologies have been introduced. Herein, we aim at giving an insight into the current state of the art in textile technology for soft robotic manufacturing. We firstly discuss the fundamental actuation mechanisms for soft robotics. We then provide a critical review on the recently developed functional textiles as reinforcements, sensors, and actuators in soft robotics. Finally, the future trends and current strategies that can be employed in textile-based actuator manufacturing process have been explored to address the critical challenges in soft robotics.
•Soft robots are manufactured to be flexible similar to living organisms.•Textile offers avenues to revolutionize soft robotics.•Progress in textile-based soft robots is reviewed.•Future trends and practical manufacturing strategies are explored.
•The potential applications of TiO2 nanoparticles to various textile materials are summarized.•Self-cleaning textile materials.•Textile materials with UV protection and antibacterial activity.•The ...influence of silver on photocatalytic activity of TiO2 nanoparticles deposited onto textile materials.
Extraordinary photocatalytic activity, non-toxicity, high availability, biocompatibility, and low price make TiO2 nanoparticles particularly attractive for manufacturing of different high value-added products. During the past several years, many efforts have been made to immobilize TiO2 nanoparticles onto textile materials with an aim to produce goods with multifunctional properties such as UV protective, self-cleaning and antibacterial. The processing of textile materials with TiO2 nanoparticles is relatively simple, but insufficient binding efficiency between certain fibers and TiO2 nanoparticles imposes a problem concerning the stability and durability of nanocomposite systems during their exploitation. Therefore, recent studies were more oriented toward chemical and physico-chemical modification of fiber surfaces that may enhance the binding efficiency of TiO2 nanoparticles. This article looks at some latest advances in finishing of different textile materials with TiO2 nanoparticles.
During the last decade, the utilization of chitin, and in par0ticular its deacetylated form, i.e., chitosan, for flame retardant purposes, has represented quite a novel and interesting application, ...very far from the established uses of this bio-sourced material. In this context, chitosan is a carbon source that can be successfully exploited, often in combination with intumescent products, in order to provide different polymer systems (namely, bulky materials, fabrics and foams) with high flame retardant (FR) features. Besides, this specific use of chitosan in flame retardance is well suited to a green and sustainable approach. This review aims to summarize the recent advances concerning the utilization of chitosan as a key component in the design of efficient flame retardant systems for different polymeric materials.
This review paper summarizes various approaches developed in the literature for antenna sensors with an emphasis on flexible solutions. The survey helps to recognize the limitations and advantages of ...this technology. Furthermore, it offers an overview of the main points for the development and design of flexible antenna sensors from the selection of the materials to the framing of the antenna including the different scenario applications. With regard to wearable antenna sensors deployment, a review of the textile materials that have been employed is also presented. Several examples related to human body applications of flexible antenna sensors such as the detection of NaCl and sugar solutions, blood and bodily variables such as temperature, strain, and finger postures are also presented. Future investigation directions and research challenges are proposed.
Although recovery of fibers from used textiles with retained material quality is desired, separation of individual components from polymer blends used in today's complex textile materials is ...currently not available at viable scale. Biotechnology could provide a solution to this pressing problem by enabling selective depolymerization of recyclable fibers of natural and synthetic origin, to isolate constituents or even recover monomers. We compiled experimental data for biocatalytic polymer degradation with a focus on synthetic polymers with hydrolysable links and calculated conversion rates to explore this path The analysis emphasizes that we urgently need major research efforts: beyond cellulose‐based fibers, biotechnological‐assisted depolymerization of plastics so far only works for polyethylene terephthalate, with degradation of a few other relevant synthetic polymer chains being reported. In contrast, by analyzing market data and emerging trends for synthetic fibers in the textile industry, in combination with numbers from used garment collection and sorting plants, it was shown that the use of difficult‐to‐recycle blended materials is rapidly growing. If the lack of recycling technology and production trend for fiber blends remains, a volume of more than 3400 Mt of waste will have been accumulated by 2030. This work highlights the urgent need to transform the textile industry from a biocatalytic perspective.
Circular textiles: This Review highlights the urgent need to transform the textile industry from a biocatalytic perspective to enable fiber to fiber recycling of today's complex textile materials (renewable building blocks schematically represented by molecules sketched). If the production trend for synthetic textile fiber blends remains, a volume of more than 3400 Mt of waste will have been accumulated by 2030.
Textile waste fiber-reinforced polymer matrix composites are usually reinforced with fiber, bands, fabrics, tows, woven and non-woven textiles, it is also possible to combine different types of ...materials in one composition. Individual textile plies of a polymer matrix component can be reinforced. This is a reason why the different textile waste are increasingly use it as a bio-based components in structural materials like sandwich structure composites with multiple layers bound in a monolith by a polymer matrix material. Also, hybrid sandwich structure composites can be manufactured, combining different textile waste plies with carbon fiber and/or glass fiber reinforcement. Having in view that a cotton fibers (i.e. denim or chambray weave) and bast fibers (i.e. jute, flax or hemp hessian fabric), as woven textile materials, destined to the textile waste fiber-reinforced polymer matrix composites are highly mouldable, lightweight and tough, several possibilities for industrial applications, sustainable material for architectural and consumer products along with other custom production make this bio-based products unique. In our research, polymer matrix based composite structures were studied by using different natural-reinforcements from eco-friendly, breathable, biodegradable and recyclable post-industrial and post-consumer waste (woven fabrics made of cotton fibers – like denim textile fabric and bast fibers – like jute hessian fabric bags).
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