From the Sector

Smart textiles have the potential to revolutionise healthcare. In his doctoral thesis in textile technology at the University of Borås, Emanuel Gunnarsson presents unique solutions to the bottleneck that has long inhibited the market.

With an ageing population, increasing demands are being placed on healthcare and smart textiles can offer a solution where only imagination sets limits. “The long-term goal of most smart textiles is for them to be so easy to use that the user doesn't think of them as anything more than regular garments. No special procedure should be needed to use them. If we succeed in that, we won't burden healthcare by having healthcare personnel administer vital parameter monitoring such as blood pressure and pulse, as the user can handle it themselves,” said Emanuel Gunnarsson.

In his work, he has investigated how a t-shirt for measuring heart rhythm and movement patterns, and garments for electrostimulation, can be produced in a single step. This involves the connection between the contact surfaces (electrodes), the insulated conductive paths between the electrode and the contact point, and the electrical measuring equipment required.

“This, as far as we know, has never been described before. We are completely convinced that this is the solution to a significant bottleneck when it comes to getting the smart textile market going in earnest,” said Emanuel Gunnarsson.

His work has resulted in two different simple ways to produce smart textiles. He demonstrates that sensors can be integrated using standard textile manufacturing methods. The research also includes criticism of some of the methods used to measure the functionality of smart textiles, and advice on how to do it better instead.

“The next natural step will be to see how these garments cope with one of the toughest challenges a garment faces, namely washing. Especially as these garments must be worn closest to the skin, they will need to be washed relatively often,” said Emanuel Gunnarsson.

Studies from other universities indicate that the yarns used to measure signals from the body do not withstand many washes, but after a small pilot study, Emanuel Gunnarsson is hopeful of the opposite.

The priority of sweater manufacturers has always been to select ingredients and fibers that are soft, hypoallergenic, and of the finest quality to meet consumer expectations that their sweaters are comfortable yet durable and easy to care for. According to the recent Eastman consumer study of sweater lovers, the sweaters consumers want to add to their wardrobes are soft, comfortable, stylish, and versatile. However, consumers are very disappointed when their sweaters look and feel differently after wearing and washing. Choosing fibers and materials that deliver comfort, quality and ease of care is essential to win with consumers. Today, these are compounded by the ever-present consumer demand for a sustainable paradigm. The promise of Naia™ from Eastman is exactly to make sustainable style accessible to brands and inclusive for everyone through a portfolio of fibers that doesn’t compromise on quality, comfort, or garment care.

The results of soft and cozy blends between the versatile Naia™ fibers and other materials can be appreciated in the collections of Naadam and The Gap, which this year presented its third collection of men's sweaters blended with Naia™ and cotton. By using Naia™ blended knits in their collections, brands are not just choosing a sustainable ingredient, but also a certified and circular supply chain: all Naia™ cellulosic fiber is produced in a safe, closed-loop process where solvents are recycled back into the system for reuse. Eastman Naia™ partners with Textiles Genesis to provide track and trace solutions for brands. All Naia™ fibers are OEKO-TEX™ STANDARD 100 certified, ensuring no use of hazardous chemicals, and certified by TÜV AUSTRIA as biodegradable and compostable, also in the ocean, as supported by a recently published ocean degradation study conducted by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).

Naia™ fibers are designed to create unlimited possibilities for uncompromising, sustainable style: among these, Naia™ Renew staple fiber permits to create eco-conscious blends that are supremely soft, quick-drying and consistently reduce pilling which are ideal for T-shirts, casual wear, sweaters, comfy pants and home textiles. Produced from 60% sustainably sourced wood pulp and 40% certified* recycled waste materials, Naia™ Renew creates the same top-quality fabrics as traditional Naia™ fibers, but with a reduced carbon footprint of around 35% — and it’s available at scale. The innovative cellulosic acetate materials can be blended with cotton, modal, merino wool, recycled polyester, or multiple content fancy yarns. Naia™ blended yarns deliver super softness for supreme wearing comfort in knitwear, and sweaters made with Naia™ Renew can have good dimensional stability and shape retention even after multiple washes. Versatile Naia™ denier sizes can be used in different yarn spinning processes, giving the yarn spinners freedom of creativity for trendy yarn designs perfect for year-round basic sweaters with good quality and a durable look. The unique cross section of Naia™ staple fibers enables designs that accommodate four seasons of wearing comfort.

Garment fitting pioneer Hohenstein has conducted the first ever measurement series on babies and toddlers. The data will aid the pattern development and fit assessment that is particularly challenging for children's clothing. The new database will help brands and manufacturers design their children's clothing in an accurate, efficient and more sustainable way using fit testing and pattern optimisation.

Hohenstein has been taking body measurements for all target groups since 1957. Based on regular serial measurements taken with 3D body scans over 20 years, data is continuously updated. With the measurement of toddlers and babies, Hohenstein is now closing a large gap in the German market for the first time. 5626 girls and boys in sizes 56 to 182 were measured. This means that 3D scans of infants are available for the first time. The 3D body data form an indispensable basis for customer-specific measurement tables, child-friendly patterns and gradings, optimal fits as well as 3D children's avatars for the simulation of clothing.

Hohenstein offers a wide range of tests for safe children's clothing from a single source. In addition to fit and pattern, Hohenstein carries out risk assessments and safety tests for children's clothing (e.g. cords according to DIN EN 13682), UV protection according to different standards, tests for harmful substances according to OEKO-TEX®, among others. Toy testing is also part of the portfolio.

• Iconic 200 Series fleece to be the first fabric made from this new process.

Polartec®, a Milliken & Company brand, announces Polartec® Shed Less Fleece, a new milestone in its industry-leading efforts to reduce textile fiber fragment shedding. Shed Less is a process that combines yarn construction, knitting, chemistry, and manufacturing to reduce home laundry fiber fragment shedding by an average of 85%. The first fabric to receive this new technology is the brand’s iconic Polartec® 200 Series Fleece, the modern version of the original PolarFleece® launched in 1981, and in 1993, the first performance fleece knit from yarn made from recycled plastic bottles.

The Shed Less process works by engineering the lofted fibers that give fleece its soft hand the ability to resist breaking and rubbing off during home laundering, cited as one contributing factor to the spread of fibers fragments (commonly referred to as microfibers). Polartec® Shed Less Fleece achieves this while maintaining all of the attributes that continue to make Polartec fleece a staple of midlayer collections - lightweight, breathable and warm.

The brand used the AATCC (American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists) TM212-2021 test method for fiber fragment release during home laundering. This test was conducted with large sample sizes to account for variability. The testing concluded that Shed Less Fleece reduced fiber fragment shedding by an average of 85% compared to the baseline fabric.

“In 2016 we began looking into how we might test for fiber loss because there wasn’t a lot of research on the issue.” said Aimee LaValley, Polartec Textile Development, Dye and Chemistry Manager. “This led to new products like Polartec Power Air™, new manufacturing processes, as well as our participation in the TextileMission workgroup to study the issue on an interdisciplinary basis.”

TextileMission was a three year collaborative initiative of academia and industry to reduce the impact of textile microplastics funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Founding partners include The Association of the German Sporting Goods Industry, Hochschule Niederrhein - University of Applied Science; TU Dresden - Institute of Water Chemistry; Vaude Sport; WWF Germany; Adidas AG; Henkel AG; Miele & CIE; and Polartec, LLC.

Polartec® Shed Less Fleece will be initially launched in the United States and will be available to customers beginning March 1, 2023. The brand plans to apply the Shed Less process to many other industry-leading fabric platforms and manufacturing facilities around the world.

A new interview study from NGO ChemSec shows that there is a gap between supply and demand when it comes to recycled materials, causing confusion and bottlenecks. Among other things, suppliers go out of their way using elaborate trade schemes to reach the coveted ”100% recycled” tag, which – it turns out – is not that important to consumer product brands. Far more crucial aspects, according to several major B2C companies, are:

• Honest communication towards customers
• Comprehensive information from suppliers
• Clear standards for recycled material

These are some of the conclusions from NGO ChemSec’s survey and interview study with 26 highly well-known consumer product brands. All brands responded to a survey concerning their current plastic use, as well as their needs, expectations and challenges regarding using more recycled material, to enable the shift to a circular economy for plastics.

Ten of the brands then participated in in-depth interviews on the same topics:, Essity, H&M, IKEA, Inditex , Lego, Mars,  SC Johnson, Tarkett, Unilever and Walgreens Boots Alliance.

Is non-mechanical recycling the answer?
Only about ten percent of all discarded plastics is recycled today, which is of course not nearly enough to achieve a circular plastics economy. Despite ambitions and initiatives to reduce plastics use – replacing the materials with other, more sustainable ones – the “plastic tap” is not expected to be turned off anytime soon. Quite the opposite, which makes raising the recycling rates more important than ever.

Although commercially viable, traditional (mechanical) recycling is afflicted with severe flaws, such as legacy chemicals, quality and functionality issues, as well as the lack of clean and sorted waste streams. The brands cited quality and functionality issues as the main obstacles for using more recycled material in their products.

This opens up for non-mechanical recycling, sometimes referred to as chemical recycling, where the plastic is either dissolved or broken down into smaller building blocks. Harmful additives and other hazardous chemicals can be removed in the process, and a material comparable to virgin plastic can be achieved – at least in theory.

So far, however, non-mechanical recycling technologies are costly, energy-intensive, and often require the addition of a great deal of virgin plastic to work – the very material that needs to be phased out.

The chain of custody models needs to be detangled
Apart from these production issues, there is a wide range of chain of custody models surrounding non-mechanical recycling, including mass balance and book & claim, which enable trade of credits or certificates for recycled material.

This cuts the physical connection between input and output, making it possible for a supplier to sell a material as “100% recycled”, when the actual recycled content could be zero.

This is a major issue for the brands ChemSec has spoken to, who value honest and correct communication towards customers. It turns out, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, that being able to slap a “made from 100% recycled plastic” label on a product is not all that important to brands.

To the brands, a physical connection between input (the discarded plastic waste headed for recycling) and output (the product at least partially made from recycled plastics) is far more important.

A physical connection, along with correct and adequate information from suppliers, as well as clearer standards and guidelines than what is available today, is what brands require to increase the use of recycled material and move us closer to a circular economy for plastics.

It looks like a normal shirt, but it has it all: The new SmartTex shirt uses integrated sensors to transfer physiological data from astronauts to Earth via a wireless communication network. In this way, the effects of the space environment on the human cardiovascular system will be evaluated and documented, especially with regard to long-term manned space missions. Developed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in cooperation with DSI Aerospace Technology, the Medical Faculty of Bielefeld University and textile research partner Hohenstein, SmartTex will be tested for the first time as part of the Wireless Compose-2 (WICO2) project by German ESA astronaut Dr. Matthias Maurer, who will leave for his ‘Cosmic Kiss’ mission on the International Space Station (ISS) for six months on October 30, 2021.

"We were already able to gain valuable insights into the interaction of the body, clothing and climate under microgravity conditions during the previous projects Spacetex (2014) and Spacetex2 (2018)," explains Hohenstein Senior Scientific Expert Dr. Jan Beringer. The insights provided at the time by the mission of ESA astronaut Dr. Alexander Gerst have now been directly incorporated into the development of the new SmartTex shirt at Hohenstein. "Matthias Maurer can wear his tailor-made shirt comfortably on his body during his everyday work on the International Space Station. For this, we used his body measurements as the basis for our cut development and the production of the shirt. We integrated the necessary sensors as well as data processing and communication modules into the shirt's cut in such a way that they interfere as little as possible and are always positioned in the right place, regardless of the wearing situation. This is the prerequisite for reliably measuring the relevant physiological data." The SmartTex shirt is intended to provide a continuous picture of the vital functions of astronauts. This will be particularly relevant for future long-term manned space missions to the Moon and Mars.

For example, during the BEAT experiment (Ballistocardiography for Extraterrestrial Applications and long-Term missions), Matthias Maurer will be the first astronaut to wear a T-shirt equipped with sensors that measure his ballistocardiographic data such as pulse and relative blood pressure. For this purpose, the sensors were calibrated in the :envihab research facility at the DLR Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Cologne. Details on the contraction rate and opening and closing times of the heart valves, which are normally only accessible via sonography or computer tomography, can also be read from the data material. The goal is to study the effects of the space environment on the human cardiovascular system. To be able to analyse these effects realistically, Matthias Maurer's ballistocardiographic data will be recorded before, during and after his stay on the ISS. For the future, a technology transfer of the SmartTex shirt for application in the field of fitness or even in telemedicine is conceivable.

Wireless Compose-2 (WICO2)
The project was planned and prepared by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and its cooperation partners DSI Aerospace Technology, Hohenstein and the University of Bielefeld. The wireless communication network reads sensor data and can determine the position of people and objects in space by propagation times of radio pulses. It is also available as a platform for several experiments on the ISS. The determined data is temporarily stored within the network and read out at regular intervals by the astronauts. These data packets are then transferred to Earth via the ISS link and analysed by the research teams. It can generate its own energy from artificial light sources via solar cells.

ESA astronaut Dr. Matthias Maurer in summer 2021 during preliminary talks on the Cosmic Kiss mission in DLR's :envihab in Cologne. © DLR

Sensors measure physiological data during a test run on Earth. © DLR

With the "SmartTex" shirt, astronauts can wear the necessary sensors comfortably on their bodies. © DLR

Dr. Jan Beringer, Hohenstein Senior Scientific Expert. © Hohenstein

The RUDOLF GROUP is an uncontested agent of positive change especially when it comes to pioneering technologies that help transforming the textile and fashion industries. A shining example of conscious leadership played by the RUDOLF GROUP over the past decades is the invention and introduction of fluorine-free Durable Water Repellency (DWR) for textile and apparel. Since 2003, the RUCO-DRY product line has gradually convinced the industry that water-resistance can be achieved through the study and replica of natural models. “Biomimicry and the study of lotus leaves and bird’s feathers were instrumental in developing the very first fluorine-free DWR’s” says Dr. Gunther Duschek, Managing Director at RUDOLF GROUP.

Fifteen years later, RUDOLF GROUP does it again and takes a significant leapfrog. It pushes the boundaries of R&D well beyond fluorine-free, embraces nature and introduces water repellent performance entirely based on natural components. “We are launching two brand new, distinctive product propositions entirely manufactured from natural sources that do not compete with human and/or animal nutrition” continues Dr. Duschek.

RUCO®-DRY BIO CGR is an absolute breakthrough and the first Durable Water Repellent (DWR) agent based on plant-derived processing wastes. In fact, RUCO®-DRY BIO CGR is made of natural waste that accumulates as by-product during the processing of cereal grains in the food industry. The leftover material that would otherwise be disposed of is refined to create a powerful water and stain repellent textile finish.

“By turning natural waste into DWR we have optimized the biologic character of RUCO®-DRY BIO CGR where the active component is made of more than 90% bio carbon” states Dr. Dirk Sielemann, R&D Director at RUDOLF GROUP. He continues: “Although most of the product is composed by recycled biomass, RUCO®-DRY BIO CGR meets the performance and durability of conventional water repellent textile finishes”.

RUCO®-DRY BIO NPE is an equally outstanding product innovation where DWR is entirely based on a carefully selected mix of natural plant extracts. The well-balanced mix of plant-based ingredients combines excellent water and stain repellent effects with breathability and a natural handfeel. 

Unlike other 100% renewable raw materials, those used in the making of RUCO®-DRY BIO NPE are chemically and genetically non-modified and are not used as food, feed or fuel. Furthermore, all of the plant extracts that compose RUCO®-DRY BIO NPE are subject to a strict conservation and sustainability framework. “That’s why the supply of RUCO®-DRY BIO NPE is likely to remain limited to the creation and marketing of performance outdoor and sports apparel programs embedding state-of-the-art sustainable technology” concludes Dr. Duschek.

Both RUCO®-DRY BIO CGR and RUCO®-DRY BIO NPE are marketed through the BIO-LOGIC trademark, registered by RUDOLF GROUP.

Empowering sportwear and athleisurewear with a sustainable imprint

Bemberg™ products including its now-iconic cupro fiber are made from a cotton linter pre consumer material, a natural derived source, and a truly unique one in the smart fiber arena that doesn’t deplete forestry resources.

In Munich, the company is pleased to announce its ultimate collaborations with　Sidonios Malhas, SA. They have created Jacquard jersey with a very interesting look and graceful touch for the athleisure solutions.

Matias & Araujo which has developed, using ZUE’s Bemberg™/Polyamide intermingle yarn, a unique beautiful touch and physical property that suit the athleisure markets; and leading manufacturer of smart jersey TINTEX Textiles created a delicate and luxurious 100% Bemberg™ interlock with silky touch guaranteed by Plummy Technology®, GOTS certified light, fluid and soft Jersey that combine Bemberg™ with organic cotton enriched by the Naturally Clean® technology.

Bemberg™ also presents unique fabrics made in Japan with a special technology of combined yarn through texturizing process and blended yarn.

Bemberg™ by leading materials manufacturer Asahi Kasei is the sole maker of one-of-a-kind, matchless, high-tech natural fibers with a unique touch and feel as well as unique performances such as moisture control and is antistatic.

Atop the exquisite and precious touch, Bemberg™ fabrics are imbued with circular economy - from its source, manufacture and end-of-life. It is all supported by the LCA study, signed by ICEA and validated by Paolo Masoni, confirming a new quality profile and standard with a more responsible and unique position today. Full GRS certification, Oeko-Tex 100, ISO 14001, & Eco-Mark. Bemberg™ also has a new Compostability Certification.

In partnership with IPSOS, GINETEX presents the outcomes of its European barometer: "Europeans and textile care labeling" 70% of Europeans follow the textile care instructions featured on the labels and 80% admit that they would not (or would rarely) buy clothes without any labels, While another 84% feel concerned by water and energy savings . GINETEX, the international Association for Textile Care Labeling, called upon the French market research company IPSOS, to evaluate the behavior of European Consumers with regards to textile product labels and care symbols. This study, carried out in December 2016, combines the results of six different countries, gathered from a sample of 6,000 people in Germany, England, France, Italy, the Czech Republic and Sweden.
This IPSOS study reveals that 70% of Europeans follow the textile care instructions represented by the symbols. At a pan-European level, 57% even admit that they follow them 'often' and 13% do so 'always'. These figures illustrate the importance of care instructions in the minds of European consumers.
- 38% state that they follow these instructions in order to avoid washing problems such as shrinking, in the first place
- 31% follow them in order to preserve their clothes and keep them longer, as a second reason Overall, Europeans consider labels as too cumbersome and 62% admit cutting them out: for 74% of them, the labels itch and irritate their skin and for another 55%, they are often too long and uncomfortable. These results can differ from one European country to another.
However, the presence of the label is a real purchasing criterion since 80% of Europeans state that they would never or rarely buy a piece of clothing without a label.