Textiles - Page 9

Vollebak, a sports gear manufacturer with an affinity towards using next-gen materials and technologies, is now selling (for 595 euros!) a graphene-enhanced jacket that according to the company, can perform functions like absorbing heat and then warming you up over time, conducting electricity, repelling bacteria, and dissipating your body’s excess humidity.

The process of developing Vollebak’s jacket, according to the company’s cofounders, brothers Steve and Nick Tidball, took years of intensive research. The jacket is reportedly made out of a two-sided material, which the company invented during the extensive R&D process. The graphene side is gray, while the other side appears matte black. To create it, the scientists turned raw graphite into graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) that were then blended with polyurethane to create a membrane. That, in turn, is bonded to nylon to form the other side of the material, which Vollebak says alters the properties of the nylon itself. Adding graphene to the nylon fundamentally changes its mechanical and chemical propertiesa nylon fabric that couldn’t naturally conduct heat or energy, for instance, now can, the company claims.

Promethient, an early stage U.S-based company that developed graphene-enhanced seat warmer technology, has received a large (though undisclosed) equity investment from Faurecia Ventures, the investment arm of Nanterre, France-based Faurecia, the sixth-largest auto supplier in the world, with a big American presence.

The funding will allow Promethient to ramp up product development and marketing and also provides it with a very large early customer. The investment will also allow Promethient to sell to other auto suppliers and makers.

Directa Plus has announced that Oakley, in collaboration with Bioracer, a designer and manufacturer of customized clothing for cycling, have launched the G+ Graphene Aero Jersey containing the Company’s graphene-based products. Unveiled today at the July 2018 EUROBIKE trade show in Friedrichshafen, Germany, the new jersey is designed to leverage the unique properties of Graphene Plus (G+) to dissipate heat from the rider’s body.

Directa Plus' printed G+ planar thermal circuit distributes the heat generated by the body and dissipates it when needed to improve the comfort of the wearer and enable riders to use less energy to regulate their body temperature. Fabrics treated with G+ are also electrostatic and bacteriostatic. These properties contribute to moisture management and have an anti-odor effect, and, if placed on the outside of the garment, G+ reduces the friction with air and water to facilitate top sporting performance.

Directa Plus, a producer and supplier of graphene-based products for use in consumer and industrial markets, has announced it has received a further order from Alfredo Grassi. Over a year ago, in June 2017, Directa Plus and Grassi teamed up to develop graphene-enhanced clothing, workwear, uniforms and other textile products.

This follow-up order is worth an initial €0.70 million to supply high performance technical textiles with Graphene Plus (G+). It is anticipated that this order will be delivered in the current financial year. The Board believes this order represents the largest amount of textile material to be treated with graphene nanoplatelets by any company in the world to date.

The graphene-enhanced composites market is on the rise with many applications popping up around the world. While graphene-enhanced composites are exciting and yield properties like a substantial mechanical strength and conductivity boost, other advanced materials are being developed worldwide to compete or complete graphene's attributes.

One such fascinating material is an artificial dragline spidersilk, developed by an Israel-based startup called Seevix Material Sciences. We contacted Dr. Shmulik Ittah, Co-Founder and CTO at Seevix Material Sciences, to give us a short review of the Company's promising material. Dragline spidersilk is known as an extremely strong fiber, that also manages to be highly elastic and stretchable. In fact, it can stretch up to 30% of its initial length. Spider silk is thus a unique phenomenon in the materials world, toting two such seemingly contradictory properties which usually do not co-reside in one material, whether natural or synthetic.

Directa Plus, Italy-based producer and supplier of graphene-based products for use in consumer and industrial markets, has announced the launch of two new textile collections containing its Graphene Plus (G+) by Colmar, a high-end sports and activewear company, and Eurojersey, a producer of high quality warp-knit technical fabrics under its Sensitive Fabrics brand.

Both collections were unveiled at ISPO 2018, the sport and sportswear international trade fair held in Munich. The launch of the Ski Winter 2018/19 collection marks Colmar’s third winter range with Directa Plus. The new collection has been expanded to consist of 31 garments incorporating G+, including male and female ski jackets and newly-released graphene-enhanced ski trousers. It reportedly follows the commercial success of two previous ski collections.

Saint Jean Carbon, a carbon science company focused on the development of green energy storage, creation and re-creation through the use of carbon materials, has announced that it has completed the design build of the research and development facility located in Oakville Ontario, Canada. The facility was established to process raw material directly to anode material and actual anodes in the near future.

The main purpose of the facility is to produce the very best quality graphite for a host of applications; lithium-ion batteries for electric cars, tools, cell phones, etc. As well as applications including, solar panels, graphene for use in fabric inks, wearable technologies, safety, health care and a vast array of other high tech applications.

Versarien recently announced that it has reached an agreement with an Asia-headquartered "global textiles and apparel manufacturer", which will have both companies collaborating to incorporate graphene into fabrics. The partner remains unnamed , but it was said that it designs, develops, and manufactures a range of different garments for well-known apparel brands globally.

Using graphene ink technology (developed by the Versarien's subsidiary Cambridge Graphene), the collaboration will involve the incorporation of graphene into textiles via yarns and fabric finishes, with the aim of enhancing the fabric properties so that they meet the requirements of some key application areas that the partner has identified.

Scientists at The University of Manchester have reported the development of a simple and cost-effective method to manufacture graphene-based wearable electronic textiles on an industrial scale. The new method could allow graphene e-textiles to be manufactured at commercial production rates of 150 meters per minute, the team said. Our simple and cost-effective way of producing multi-functional graphene textiles could easily be scaled up for many real-life applications, such as sportswear, military gear, and medical clothing, said the researchers.

The team reversed the previous process of coating textiles with graphene-based materials; Traditionally, the textiles are first coated with graphene oxide, which is then converted into its functional form of reduced graphene oxide. Instead, the researchers first reduced the graphene oxide in solution, and then coated the textiles with the reduced form.

Researchers from Cambridge University have demonstrated how graphene and other related 2D materials (namely hBN) can be directly printed onto textiles to create fully inkjet-printed dielectrically gated field effect transistors (FETs) with solution processed 2D materials.

According to the team, these devices are washable, flexible, cheap, safe, comfortable to wear and environmentally-friendly, essential requirements for applications in wearable electronics. The team also demonstrated the first reprogrammable memories, inverters and logic gates with solution processed 2D materials by coupling these FETs together to create integrated circuits, the most fundamental components of a modern-day computer.