we focus on small-scale energy harvesting based on the thermoelectric effect.Thermoelectric materials can be used to convert waste heat to electric energy via Seebeck effect. They are characterized by a dimensionless figure-of-merit ZT = S 2 σT/(κ e + κ L ), where S is the Seebeck coefficient (thermopower), σ the electrical conductivity, T the temperature, and κ e and κ L the electronic and lattice contributions to the thermal conductivity κ. [12] Figure 1 illustrates the basic principle of a conventional thermoelectric (TE) energy conversion device and the concept of a TE generator device combined with a flexible substrate. Furthermore, Figure 1c shows how the ZT value arises from the abovementioned individual components. Alloys of bismuth telluride (Bi 2 Te 3 ) and antimony telluride (Sb 2 Te 3 ) are by far the most widely used TE materials. They show high ZT values for near-room-temperature applications and have been utilized for decades in solid-state refrigeration applications. A major obstacle for the widespread utilization of Bi-Sb-Te based thermoelectrics is the low abundance of tellurium: it is among the rarest elements in the Earth's crust. Furthermore, current thermoelectric generators based on conventional TE materials such as Bi 2 Te 3 are typically inflexible solid-state devices, which would not be convenient for mobile small-scale applications. [12] Consequently, there is a significant interest in producing flexible and efficient TE generator solutions. In particular, a mechanically flexible TE generator solution integrated with light-weight and comfortable textile substrates could be an enabling platform for body-heat-based energy harvesting.Recently Lee et al. fabricated woven-yarn thermoelectric textiles by coating electrospun polyacrylonitrile nanofiber cores with n-type Bi 2 Te 3 and p-type Sb 2 Te 3 and twisting them into flexible yarns. [13] By weaving the TE-coated yarns into textiles, they were able to obtain an output power of up to 8.56 W m −2 for a temperature difference of 200 K in the textile thickness direction. Another recent study on thermoelectric fabrics utilized a completely different type of material solution, where thermoelectric PEDOT:PSS (poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate) polymer was used to coat a polyester fabric with a solution-based method. [14] This fabric-TE device was based on p-type PEDOT:PSS only, resulting in a so-called unileg-type device that produced an output power of about 260 µW m −2 for a temperature difference of 75 K.The thermoelectric properties of both pristine ZnO and ZnO-organic superlattice thin films deposited on a cotton textile are investigated. The thin films are fabricated by atomic layer deposition/molecular layer deposition, using hydroquinone as the organic precursor for the superlattices. The resulting thin-film coatings are crystalline, in particular when deposited on a textile substrate with a thin predeposited Al 2 O 3 seed layer. The thermoelectric properties of the ZnO and ZnO-organic superlattice coatings are comp...

Figure 1: Using Teksig to reliably identify pinching on a wrinkled textile.

No abstract

Smart textiles have established a foothold in different academic fields, such as in chemistry, engineering, and in human-computer interaction (HCI). Within HCI, smart textiles are present in research in many ways, for example, as context, as means, or as focus. However, interdisciplinary projects tend to leave the implications of and to textile design without notice. How can a project utilise a textile designer's skills to feed back to textile design from an interdisciplinary project? In this paper, we present a case study, where a textile designer's role extends beyond the prototype production, and we analyse the project in light of textile design. Our findings show that textile design can augment data collection and analysis. We conclude with a discussion towards inclusion of textile design in HCI.

Our paper discusses the design-led processes in a project starting as multidisciplinary, focusing on three serendipitous cases that influenced the outcomes and the textile-design-research path taken in the overall project. The work presented here revolved around semiconductive cotton, suitable for textile design, and examines it from the design team perspective. This paper identifies and discusses three cases, as they had considerable weight on the project path. In order to understand these cases, we evaluated them based on a model for a serendipitous experience. The follow-ups to the serendipitous connections gave empowerment to the design research team, increasing their ownership of the research results. Relaxing boundaries between disciplines and varying routines have been highly relevant factors in the new knowledge generation. Ability to perform a consented and significant diversion to the research path was crucial for reacting to the serendipitous discovery and establishing the research space of the interdisciplinary project.