TEXTILES.ORG
Enhancing usability of smart textiles is necessary for improved user acceptance, and washability is a key requirement, especially concerning textile integrated conductor tracks, a new study concludes. Those tracks, it says, “exhibit a higher level of integration into the textile substrates compared to other, often removable components of smart textiles.”
The article was published by the Journal of the Textile Institute. Authors Sigrid Rotzler, Christine Kallmayer, Christian Dils, Malte von Krshiwoblozki, Ulrich Bauer and Martin Schneider-Ramelow assessed changes in conductivity to determine the effects of different washing conditions on different combinations of textile substrates and conductor tracks.
“Differing results for each combination do not permit global conclusions about the washability of textile-integrated conductor tracks or smart textiles,” the authors report. “Instead, washability is influenced by the choice and combination of materials as well as methods of integration and processing – important to consider when developing new products.”
The full article, “Improving the washability of smart textiles: influence of different washing conditions on textile integrated conductor tracks,” is available at www.tandfonline.com.