Smart clothing represents less than 1% of the multibillion dollar wearables market. This lagging representation is due to many factors; one predominant challenge which includes performance reliability post-laundering/care. Due to smart clothing intimately contacting the human body, it naturally becomes soiled and requires laundering. However, insight into the impact of consumer detergents and other additives on e-textile conductive functionality post laundering has yet to be explored. The purpose of this research was to study laundering conditions, specifically the influence of select laundry detergents and additives, on surface resistivity of select e-textiles to provide initial insights into the impact of consumer-available laundering treatments to contribute to knowledge around laundering of e-textiles. Understanding initial impacts of laundering conditions, particularly detergents and other common laundry additives can inform future studies, laundering text methods of e-textiles, and care label development.
Wearables are electronic devices worn on the body, either as an accessory or integrated into clothing (ASTM Committee D13, 2020). Wearables have conductivity capabilities, advanced circuitry, and data communication functions. Growing since the 1970's, the wearable technology market is now a $32.63 billion industry, evolving to move data collection, analysis, and communication from smart devices directly to the body via sensors and electronic textiles (or etextiles). Products made with fully integrated, wearable technology are referred to as 'smart clothing' or 'smart garments.' Due to their intimate contact with the human body, wearables become soiled and must be cleaned. One of the most significant challenges of smart garments is performance reliability post-laundering (Balsamo et al., 2017;Jansen, 2019;Rotzler, 2020). To achieve their full potential, wearable e-textiles (smart garments) must overcome these challenges to become everyday wear (Begovic Johnson, 2020). An e-textile is "a fiber, yarn, fabric or end product comprising elements that result in an electrical or electronic circuit, with or without processing capability, or the components thereof" (ASTM Committee D13, 2020). Like traditional wearables, e-textiles send data to secondary devices where the user can evaluate the information. Most e-textile products are still in the research and development stage (Gonçalves et al., 2018), falling short in either functional performance, ease of use, production capability, price point, comfort, and/or maintenance, which includes washability (European Commission, 2016). Body soils may negatively impact smart garment functionality and also need to be removed for hygienic reasons. Thus, future wearables must be washable on-demand (European Commission, 2016). Current care instructions for etextiles are limiting in terms of wash conditions. E-textile specification sheets may note that washing of any type (wet or dry) will eventually degrade metallic coatings and thus reduce functionality. When e-textiles are fully integrated into smart clothing, these laundry practices are inadequate for hygienic cleaning, inconsistent with behaviors of apparel consumers (Shin, 2000), and incompatible with garment longevity. Quantifying the impact of machine laundering conditions, specifically the impact of detergents or other additives, is crucial to establishing effective and realistic methods for repeatable care of smart clothing. In this study, the influence of detergents and laundry additives on e-textile surface resistivity is researched. The purpose of this study is to add to the body of knowledge pertaining to e-textiles and wash conditions which may contribute to the development of appropriate smart garment care labels, thus, assisting in the preservation of product functionality. Seven e-textiles (see Table 1) were tested for a change in surface resistivity post-laundering. The detergents and other laundry additives were selected to represent a range of commonly used formulations and chemical laundering conditions. These in...
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.