Textiles - Page 10

The China-based Shanghai Kyorene New Material Technology recently unveiled a graphene-based flame-retardant fabric during the Textile & Yarn Expo in Shanghai.

The fabric seems to be extremely resistant to flames, and no damage appears even when it is directly touched with a burning lighter. It is also said to posses anti ultra-violet and anti-static properties. It can be used for firefighting purposes as well as furniture and other domestic uses.

Directa Plus, a producer and supplier of graphene-based products, has teamed up with clothing manufacturer Alfredo Grassi to develop graphene-enhanced clothing, workwear, uniforms and more. This joint development agreement follows a trial of Directa’s graphene by Alfredo to assess the potential benefits of incorporating graphene into their products.

The initial focus under the deal will be on garments with linings printed with Graphene Plus combined with waterproof, breathable textiles. The presence of G+ graphene, which has reportedly been independently certified as non-toxic and non-cytotoxic, produces a technically advanced fabric with unique properties, the company claims.

A Chinese company called Shanghai Kyorene New Material Technology has reportedly developed a graphene fiber, that has been used to produce clothes, sports wear and underwear products. One company that states it uses these fibers in actual commercial products is Armor Guys, a U.S-based glove maker.

The technology is said to make graphene completely integrated with high polymer materials under room temperature, and adds special function to ordinary textile products like antibacterial, ultraviolet-proof, anti-static and heat preservation effects.

Imagine Intelligent Materials, an Australia-based graphene applications company, has announced a commercial installation of its imgne® X3 solution, at a Queensland coal seam gas site, reportedly completed during the 2nd week of May.

The installations comprise a total of over 10,000 square meters of bidim C geotextiles, manufactured by Geofabrics Australasia and coated with Imagine IM’s imgne® X3. The conductive coating enables detection of holes as small as 0.7 mm using pre-existing, proven electrical testing techniques. The solution allows operators to reduce the risk of leakage of toxic leachate from CSG mining into groundwater and aquifers.

Directa Plus has been allocated a €1 million grant from the European Regional Development Fund for a research project to develop graphene-based smart fabrics.

The project will be focused on enhancing the thermal and electrical performance of textiles for fashion applications. Directa Plus will act as project leader, and will work in collaboration with fabric store Novaresin and manufacturer Soliani, as well as the Politecnico of Milan university.

Directa Plus, a producer and supplier of graphene-based products for use in consumer and industrial markets, has teamed up with Eurojersey, an Italian producer of technical fabrics under its Sensitive Fabrics brand, to produce a range of fabrics containing the company’s graphene-based products. The new line will focus on high-performance technical fabrics targeting sportswear and underwear sectors.

The companies are conducting joint R&D to further develop the prototype textiles into product samples that will be marketed to the customers of Directa Plus and Eurojersey. The lamination of Sensitive Fabrics with Grafytherm functional membranes containing G+, distributed exclusively by Directa Textile Solutions, reportedly produces a technologically advanced fabric with unique thermal features: the presence of G+ graphene, which is highly thermally conductive, allows a homogeneous distribution of the heat produced by the human body in cold weather and a heat dispersion effect in hot weather.

A team of researchers from Exeter’s Centre for Graphene Science have developed a method for creating entire device arrays directly on the copper substrates used for the commercial manufacture of graphene. Complete and fully-functional devices can then be transferred to a substrate of choice, such as silicon, plastics or even textiles.

This new approach is simpler than conventional ways of producing graphene-based devices, and could lead the way to using simple and cheap-to-produce graphene devices for various applications, from gas and bio-medical sensors to touch-screen displays.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge in the UK and Jiangnan University in China have designed a low-cost, sustainable and environmentally-friendly method for making conductive cotton textiles using graphene-based ink. These fabrics could lead to smart textiles and interactive clothes that will find applications in healthcare, wearables, Internet of Things and more.

The team created inks of chemically modified graphene flakes that are more adhesive to cotton fibers than unmodified graphene. Heat treatment after depositing the ink on the fabric improves the conductivity of the modified graphene. The adhesion of the modified graphene to the cotton fiber is similar to the way cotton holds colored dyes and allows the fabric to remain conductive after several washes.

Directa Plus has launched Directa Textile Solutions (DTS), a new company set up to commercialize graphene-enhanced textile membranes for the growing market of smart textiles. This launch follows the €60,000 (US $64,555) acquisition of a 60% stake in textile membrane company Osmotek by Directa Plus.

Directa Plus has been working closely with Novaresin, a membrane production company with a factory in Italy, to develop graphene-enhanced textile membranes. The agreement stipulates that Directa Plus will supply graphene-based products to Novaresin, which will then produce the graphene-enhanced membranes to commercialize through DTS.

Researchers at Exeter have devised a graphene composite (GraphExeter) that is highly conducting, and now they demonstrate the first prototype of the material in an electroluminescent device, showing its feasibility for luminescent textiles and flexible displays.

The high conductivity of GraphExeter can introduce many improvements to flexible displays. Large screens using existing materials fade to a darker region in the middle due to the sheet resistance. This places a practical limitation in the range of square centimetres on how large the screen can be. The extremely low sheet resistance of GraphExeter - less than 8Ω/□ compared with 1000Ω/□ for pristine single layer graphene and 850Ω/□ for the more commonly used PEDOT/PSS means that screens several square metres in size are feasible.