One can learn about hum excellence through a variety of channels, and yet nothing is going to be more educating here than our tendency to improve at a consistent pace. We say this because the stated tendency has already fetched the world some huge milestones, with technology emerging as quite a major member of the group. The reason why we hold technology in such a high regard is, by and large, predicated upon its skill-set, which guided us towards a reality that nobody could have ever imagined otherwise. Nevertheless, if we look beyond the surface for a second, it will become clear how the whole runner was also very much inspired from the way we applied those skills across a real world environment. The latter component, in fact, did a lot to give the creation a spectrum-wide presence, and as a result, initiated a full-blown tech revolution. Of course, the next thing this revolution did was to scale up the human experience through some outright unique avenues, but even after achieving a feat so notable, technology will somehow continue to bring forth the right goods. The same has turned more and more evident in recent times, and assuming one new proposal ends up with the desired impact, it will only put that trend on a higher pedestal moving forward.
The University of Cambridge has formally proposed a brand-new 4R e-textile design concept, which includes repair, recycle, replace, and reduce, alongside innovations in materials selection and biofabrication-inspired processing, to produce biomaterials, devices, cells and tissues. In order to understand the significance of such a development, we must get into the ultimate problem statement here. You see, owing to our recent advancements and the emergence of embedded electronic components, the world has reached on the prospect of electronic textiles (e-textiles), which allows us to store and harvest energy, sense, display, actuate and compute. However, despite the clear incentives, there remain two major challenges to the future growth of e-textiles. Firstly, it’s the high cost conundrum, a limitation severely affecting their wider consumer adoption. Secondly, it’s the high environmental costs associated with mass production. Here, the main issue concerns microplastic water pollution. But how will the new proposal help us in overcoming these challenges? Well, if it proves to be viable, the idea is going to facilitate for the world sustainable growth and balance economic returns with “environmental consciousness”. Talk about the proposal on a deeper level, we begin from repair. The researchers’ plan for this step is to rope in fiber level repairs, such as re-sewing, re-weaving, re-knitting, and self-healing of electronic fibers. For scalability reasons, they will also include bulk “fabric-level” repairs, such as recoating, reprinting and re-spraying of active materials. Furthermore, they are banking upon a modular approach to switch out faulty components easily and rejuvenate the electronic functionalities of the system.
Next up, we have recycling, which will be conceived through categorizing and separating e-textiles components into the base textile and the electronic modules. You see, e-textile recycling has traditionally been a little complex, given the fabrics contain functionalized electronic fibers with electrical conductivity and sensing capabilities. With extraction also being a time-consuming and costly alternative, the approach of just separating the two elements instantly presents us a more viable option.
“Machine washing of e-textiles has, to date, contributed to an increase in microplastic pollution in the water stream. The challenge here is to reinforce the functional longevity of e-textiles, while minimizing the number of microparticles released. Strategies for this include the decoupling of transient/single-use components or designing ‘dry’ or ‘vapor-based’ cleaning protocols that consume less water,” said Dr. Harvey Shi, co-lead author on the study.
Then, there is replacing. Just like the term might suggest, this one preaches the induction of a whole new materials design that utilizes earth-abundant elements and can accelerate e-textile commercialization, while simultaneously making them more cost-effective for the average consumer. Another detail worth a mention around replacing would be the researchers’ support of alternative bio-derived material options for electronic fiber encapsulation to create non-irritating and skin-compatible e-textile surfaces. To put it into context, material options in the stated discipline, at present, are mostly synthetic and non-biodegradable.
Lastly, the proposal brings to us the prospect of reducing that is divided into two different use cases. On one hand, the researchers hope to apply it for reducing the total emissions and energy consumption during e-textile production and deployment, whereas on the other hand, they will reduce the total amount of material used in e-textiles to achieve and maintain a specified function.
The future of 4R-integrated e-textiles is, in its own right, segregated across different timelines. For instance, over the more immediate future, the researching team plans on standardizing e-textiles platforms to integrate a variety of electronic modules, leading to innovative processing technologies that will bring affordable e-textiles to a broader consumer base. The practical developments in short-term are likely to include automated assembly processes; a database of functional ink formations for e-textiles developers to use; and a standardized component decoupling mechanism based on longevity ratings.
“Adopting this standardization approach in the near term can enable developers to create a customized array of cross-compatible functional components; reinforce user safety and public interests in the personalized health care and customized non-invasive therapeutics market (i.e., product certification); and can lead to designated cleaning protocols,” said Yifei Pan, Ph.D. student in the Biointerface Research Group at Cambridge University.
In the mid-term, the primary intention talks to employing user-centric design strategies and innovative processing technologies to offer a broader range of e-textiles to the public, textiles that will be comfortable and customizable. The ultimate long-term vision, though, is creating sustainable and “living” e-textiles, like engineered robotic skin, that are complimented by fiber-on-demand and biofabrication technologies to ensure self-clean up, self-repair, and eventually, self-regeneration.
“As we drive towards future sustainable e-textile manufacturing, there could be a paradigm shift from a centralized mass production strategy with one principal facility to a more widespread additive manufacturing/3D printing platform—ultimately creating and repairing e-textiles on-site,” said Shery Huang, a professor from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering and co-lead author on the study.
