Graphene-based
wearable e-textiles are considered to be promising
due to their advantages over traditional metal-based technology. However,
the manufacturing process is complex and currently not suitable for
industrial scale application. Here we report a simple, scalable, and
cost-effective method of producing graphene-based wearable e-textiles
through the chemical reduction of graphene oxide (GO) to make stable
reduced graphene oxide (rGO) dispersion which can then be applied
to the textile fabric using a simple pad-dry technique. This application
method allows the potential manufacture of conductive graphene e-textiles
at commercial production rates of ∼150 m/min. The graphene
e-textile materials produced are durable and washable with acceptable
softness/hand feel. The rGO coating enhanced the tensile strength
of cotton fabric and also the flexibility due to the increase in
strain% at maximum load. We demonstrate the potential application
of these graphene e-textiles for wearable electronics with activity
monitoring sensor. This could potentially lead to a multifunctional
single graphene e-textile garment that can act both as sensors and
flexible heating elements powered by the energy stored in graphene
textile supercapacitors.
Personal protective equipment (PPE) is critical to protect healthcare workers (HCWs)
from highly infectious diseases such as COVID-19. However, hospitals have been at risk
of running out of the safe and effective PPE including personal protective clothing
needed to treat patients with COVID-19, due to unprecedented global demand. In addition,
there are only limited manufacturing facilities of such clothing available worldwide,
due to a lack of available knowledge about relevant technologies, ineffective supply
chains, and stringent regulatory requirements. Therefore, there remains a clear unmet
need for coordinating the actions and efforts from scientists, engineers, manufacturers,
suppliers, and regulatory bodies to develop and produce safe and effective protective
clothing using the technologies that are locally available around the world. In this
review, we discuss currently used PPE, their quality, and the associated regulatory
standards. We survey the current state-of-the-art antimicrobial functional finishes on
fabrics to protect the wearer against viruses and bacteria and provide an overview of
protective medical fabric manufacturing techniques, their supply chains, and the
environmental impacts of current single-use synthetic fiber-based protective clothing.
Finally, we discuss future research directions, which include increasing efficiency,
safety, and availability of personal protective clothing worldwide without conferring
environmental problems.
The aim of this research was to investigate the recycling of cotton waste garments by fibre regeneration. Easy care finished cotton fabrics and indigo dyed waste denim garments were successfully purified, dissolved in a suitable solvent and spun into fibres. The physical properties of the resultant fibres were compared with standard lyocell fibres spun from wood pulp and the fibres regenerated from the cotton waste garments exhibited improved mechanical and molecular properties relative to the typical fibres regenerated from wood pulp. Furthermore the results have indicated that a suitable blend of wood pulp and pulp reclaimed form cotton based waste garments can produce fibres with properties that are intermediate to cotton and lyocell fibres. The results suggest an alternative approach to fibre resource management by converting cotton based waste garment through regeneration processing into second lifetime cellulosic fibre. The approach will contribute to the reduction of both economic and environmental impact of waste garments and better management of resources required for production of cotton and synthetic fibres.
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