Textination Newsline

Introducing the fashion of the future: a T-shirt you can wear a few times, then, when you get bored with it, dissolve and recycle to make a new shirt.

Researchers at the ATLAS Institute at the CU Boulder are now one step closer to that goal. In a new study, the team of engineers and designers developed a DIY machine that spins textile fibers made of materials like sustainably sourced gelatin. The group’s “biofibers” feel a bit like flax fiber and dissolve in hot water in minutes to an hour.

The team, led by Eldy Lázaro Vásquez, a doctoral student in the ATLAS Institute, presented its findings in May at the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Honolulu.

“When you don’t want these textiles anymore, you can dissolve them and recycle the gelatin to make more fibers,” said Michael Rivera, a co-author of the new research and assistant professor in the ATLAS Institute and Department of Computer Science.

The study tackles a growing problem around the world: In 2018 alone, people in the United States added more than 11 million tons of textiles to landfills, according to the Environmental Protection Agency—nearly 8% of all municipal solid waste produced that year.

The researchers envision a different path for fashion.

Their machine is small enough to fit on a desk and cost just $560 to build. Lázaro Vásquez hopes the device will help designers around the world experiment with making their own biofibers.

“You could customize fibers with the strength and elasticity you want, the color you want,” she said. “With this kind of prototyping machine, anyone can make fibers. You don’t need the big machines that are only in university chemistry departments.”

Spinning threads
The study arrives as fashionistas, roboticists and more are embracing a trend known as “smart textiles.” Levi’s Trucker Jacket with Jacquard by Google, for example, looks like a denim coat but includes sensors that can connect to your smartphone.

But such clothing of the future comes with a downside, Rivera said:

“That jacket isn't really recyclable. It's difficult to separate the denim from the copper yarns and the electronics.”

To imagine a new way of making clothes, the team started with gelatin. This springy protein is common in the bones of many animals, including pigs and cows. Every year, meat producers throw away large volumes of gelatin that doesn’t meet requirements for cosmetics or food products like Jell-O. (Lázaro Vásquez bought her own gelatin, which comes as a powder, from a local butcher shop.)

She and her colleagues decided to turn that waste into wearable treasure.

The group’s machine uses a plastic syringe to heat up and squeeze out droplets of a liquid gelatin mixture. Two sets of rollers in the machine then tug on the gelatin, stretching it out into long, skinny fibers—not unlike a spider spinning a web from silk. In the process, the fibers also pass through liquid baths where the researchers can introduce bio-based dyes or other additives to the material. Adding a little bit of genipin, an extract from fruit, for example, makes the fibers stronger.

Other co-authors of the research included Mirela Alistar and Laura Devendorf, both assistant professors in ATLAS.

Dissolving duds
Lázaro Vásquez said designers may be able to do anything they can imagine with these sorts of textiles.

As a proof of concept, the researchers made small textile sensors out of gelatin fibers and cotton and conductive yarns, similar to the makeup of a Jacquard jacket. The team then submerged these patches in warm water. The gelatin dissolved, releasing the yarns for easy recycling and reuse.

Designers could tweak the chemistry of the fibers to make them a little more resilient, Lázaro Vásquez said—you wouldn’t want your jacket to disappear in the rain. They could also play around with spinning similar fibers from other natural ingredients. Those materials include chitin, a component of crab shells, or agar-agar, which comes from algae.

“We’re trying to think about the whole lifecycle of our textiles,” Lázaro Vásquez said. “That begins with where the material is coming from. Can we get it from something that normally goes to waste?”

Researchers at Fraunhofer have developed an ultra-compact near-infrared spectrometer suitable for recognizing and analyzing textiles. Mixed fabrics can also be reliably identified through the combination of imaging, special AI (artificial intelligence) algorithms and spectroscopy. The technology could be used to optimize recycling old clothing, so old apparel could be sorted according to type. A highly miniaturized version of the system can even fit into a smartphone. This could lead to a host of new applications for end-users in everyday life — from checking clothes when out shopping to detecting counterfeits.

Infrared spectrometers are powerful measuring instruments when it comes to non-destructive analysis of organic materials. The Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS in Dresden has recently developed a spectral analyzer system that recognizes and analyzes textile fabrics. The system can also reliably recognize mixed fabrics. Possible applications range from checking fabrics when out shopping to cleaning garments correctly, and even sustainable, sorted recycling. The spectrometer is so tiny, it can be integrated into a smartphone.

Researchers at Fraunhofer rely on near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy to achieve the required reliability and accuracy when identifying textiles. The system works for wavelengths between 950 and 1900 nanometers, which is close to the visible spectrum. Advantages of near-infrared technology include being easy to use and having a wide range of applications. “We combine NIR spectroscopy with imaging and AI to achieve higher accuracy when recognizing and analyzing objects,” explains Dr. Heinrich Grüger, research scientist in the Sensoric Micromodules department at Fraunhofer IPMS.

How textile analysis works
Firstly, a conventional camera module captures an image of the garment. The AI selects a specific point from the fabric’s image data to be examined by the spectral analyzer module. Light reflected from the fabric is captured by the spectrometer module. There, it passes through an entrance slit, is transformed into parallel light beams using a collimating mirror and projected onto a grating using a scanning mirror. Depending on the angle of incidence and exit, the grating splits the light beams into different wavelengths. Light reflected from the grating is directed by the scanner mirror to a detector which captures the light as an electrical signal. An A/D converter then digitizes these signals, which are subsequently analyzed in the signal processor. The resulting spectrometric profile for the textile fabric reveals which fibers it is made from by comparing to a reference database.“ The optical resolution is 10 nanometers. This high resolution means the NIR spectrometer can also use AI to identify mixed fabrics such as items of clothing made from polyester and cotton,” says Grüger. Measuring just 10 mm × 10 mm and being 6.5 mm thick, the system is so compact it could easily be integrated into a standard smartphone.

Recycling old clothing
Grüger sees an important application for the AI-controlled spectrometer when it comes to recycling. According to the Federal Statistical Office of Germany, approximately 176,200 tons of textile and clothing waste was collected from private homes in Germany in 2021. NIR spectroscopy could improve recycling efficiency and reduce the mountain of old clothing. This would enable companies that recycle old clothing to sort it more efficiently and faster. Textiles that are still in one piece, for instance, go to the second-hand trade. Damaged textiles are sorted for recycling, and the fibers they are made from, such as linen, silk, cotton or lyocell, can be reused. Severely soiled textiles would be incinerated or processed into insulation mats, for example. Spectroscopic identifies and sorts textiles more accurately and much faster than a human can.

If NIR spectroscopy was to be integrated into a smartphone, end-users might also benefit from the Fraunhofer institute’s technology. When buying clothes, a quick check with a smartphone reveals whether that expensive silk scarf is genuinely made from silk, or whether that exclusive dress from the fashion label is not instead a counterfeit, exposed through an alternative mix of fabrics. And should the label with the cleaning instructions no longer be legible, the smartphone has a textile scanner to identify the fabric and so determine the appropriate wash cycle.

Food check and dermatology
Researchers at Fraunhofer IPMS can even envisage applications beyond the textile industry. Smartphones fitted with spectrometers might be used to provide information about the quality of groceries such as fruit and vegetables when out shopping. The technology might conceivably also be used to examine skin. A quick scan with the cell phone spectrometer could identify particularly dry or greasy patches. Perhaps applications in medical diagnostics might even be conceivable — examining patches of skin where a melanoma is suspected, for example — but this would need professional involvement too.

Researchers have developed next-generation smart textiles – incorporating LEDs, sensors, energy harvesting, and storage – that can be produced inexpensively, in any shape or size, using conventional industrial looms used to make the clothing worn every day.
 
An international team, led by the University of Cambridge, have previously demonstrated that woven displays can be made at large sizes, but these earlier examples were made using specialised manual laboratory equipment. Other smart textiles can be manufactured in specialised microelectronic fabrication facilities, but these are highly expensive and produce large volumes of waste.

However, the team found that flexible displays and smart fabrics can be made much more cheaply, and more sustainably, by weaving electronic, optoelectronic, sensing and energy fibre components on the same industrial looms used to make conventional textiles. Their results, reported in the journal Science Advances, demonstrate how smart textiles could be an alternative to larger electronics in sectors including automotive, electronics, fashion and construction.

Despite recent progress in the development of smart textiles, their functionality, dimensions and shapes have been limited by current manufacturing processes.
“We could make these textiles in specialised microelectronics facilities, but these require billions of pounds of investment,” said Dr Sanghyo Lee from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering, the paper’s first author. “In addition, manufacturing smart textiles in this way is highly limited, since everything has to be made on the same rigid wafers used to make integrated circuits, so the maximum size we can get is about 30 centimetres in diameter.”

“Smart textiles have also been limited by their lack of practicality,” said Dr Luigi Occhipinti, also from the Department of Engineering, who co-led the research. “You think of the sort of bending, stretching and folding that normal fabrics have to withstand, and it’s been a challenge to incorporate that same durability into smart textiles.”
Last year, some of the same researchers showed that if the fibres used in smart textiles were coated with materials that can withstand stretching, they could be compatible with conventional weaving processes. Using this technique, they produced a 46-inch woven demonstrator display.

Now, the researchers have shown that smart textiles can be made using automated processes, with no limits on their size or shape. Multiple types of fibre devices, including energy storage devices, light-emitting diodes, and transistors were fabricated, encapsulated, and mixed with conventional fibres, either synthetic or natural, to build smart textiles by automated weaving. The fibre devices were interconnected by an automated laser welding method with electrically conductive adhesive.
 
The processes were all optimised to minimise damage to the electronic components, which in turn made the smart textiles durable enough to withstand the stretching of an industrial weaving machine. The encapsulation method was developed to consider the functionality of the fibre devices, and the mechanical force and thermal energy were investigated systematically to achieve automated weaving and laser-based interconnection, respectively.

The research team, working in partnership with textile manufacturers, were able to produce test patches of smart textiles of roughly 50x50 centimetres, although this can be scaled up to larger dimensions and produced in large volumes.
 
“These companies have well-established manufacturing lines with high throughput fibre extruders and large weaving machines that can weave a metre square of textiles automatically,” said Lee. “So when we introduce the smart fibres to the process, the result is basically an electronic system that is manufactured exactly the same way other textiles are manufactured.”
The researchers say it could be possible for large, flexible displays and monitors to be made on industrial looms, rather than in specialised electronics manufacturing facilities, which would make them far cheaper to produce. Further optimisation of the process is needed, however.

“The flexibility of these textiles is absolutely amazing,” said Occhipinti. “Not just in terms of their mechanical flexibility, but the flexibility of the approach, and to deploy sustainable and eco-friendly electronics manufacturing platforms that contribute to the reduction of carbon emissions and enable real applications of smart textiles in buildings, car interiors and clothing. Our approach is quite unique in that way.”

The research was supported in part by the European Union and UK Research and Innovation.

Embroidering power-generating yarns onto fabric allowed researchers to embed a self-powered, numerical touch-pad and movement sensors into clothing. The technique offers a low-cost, scalable potential method for making wearable devices.

“Our technique uses embroidery, which is pretty simple – you can stitch our yarns directly on the fabric,” said the study’s lead author Rong Yin, assistant professor of textile engineering, chemistry and science at North Carolina State University. “During fabric production, you don’t need to consider anything about the wearable devices. You can integrate the power-generating yarns after the clothing item has been made.”

In the study published in Nano Energy, researchers tested multiple designs for power-generating yarns. To make them durable enough to withstand the tension and bending of the embroidery stitching process, they ultimately used five commercially available copper wires, which had a thin polyurethane coating, together. Then, they stitched them onto cotton fabric with another material called PTFE.

“This is a low-cost method for making wearable electronics using commercially available products,” Yin said. “The electrical properties of our prototypes were comparable to other designs that relied on the same power generation mechanism.”

The researchers relied on a method of generating electricity called the “triboelectric effect,” which involves harnessing electrons exchanged by two different materials, like static electricity. They found the PTFE fabric had the best performance in terms of voltage and current when in contact with the polyurethane-coated copper wires, as compared to other types of fabric that they tested, including cotton and silk. They also tested coating the embroidery samples in plasma to increase the effect.

“In our design, you have two layers – one is your conductive, polyurethane-coated copper wires, and the other is PTFE, and they have a gap between them,” Yin said. “When the two non-conductive materials come into contact with each other, one material will lose some electrons, and some will get some electrons. When you link them together, there will be a current.”
Researchers tested their yarns as motion sensors by embroidering them with the PTFE fabric on denim. They placed the embroidery patches on the palm, under the arm, at the elbow and at the knee to track electrical signals generated as a person moves. They also attached fabric with their embroidery on the insole of a shoe to test its use as a pedometer, finding their electrical signals varied depending on whether the person was walking, running or jumping.

Lastly, they tested their yarns in a textile-based numeric keypad on the arm, which they made by embroidering numbers on a piece of cotton fabric, and attaching them to a piece of PTFE fabric. Depending on the number that the person pushed on the keypad, they saw different electrical signals generated for each number.

“You can embroider our yarns onto clothes, and when you move, it generates an electrical signal, and those signals can be used as a sensor,” Yin said. “When we put the embroidery in a shoe, if you are running, it generates a higher voltage than if you were just walking. When we stitched numbers onto fabric, and press them, it generates a different voltage for each number. It could be used as an interface.”

Since textile products will inevitably be washed, they tested the durability of their embroidery design in a series of washing and rubbing tests. After hand washing and rinsing the embroidery with detergent, and drying it in an oven, they found no difference or a slight increase in voltage. For the prototype coated in plasma, they found weakened but still superior performance compared with the original sample. After an abrasion test, they found that there was no significant change in electrical output performance of their designs after 10,000 rubbing cycles.

In future work, they plan to integrate their sensors with other devices to add more functions.
“The next step is to integrate these sensors into a wearable system,” Yin said.

The study, “Flexible, durable and washable triboelectric yarn and embroidery for self-powered sensing and human-machine interaction,” was published online in Nano Energy. Co-authors included Yu Chen, Erdong Chen, Zihao Wang, Yali Ling, Rosie Fisher, Mengjiao Li, Jacob Hart, Weilei Mu, Wei Gao, Xiaoming Tao and Bao Yang. Funding was provided by North Carolina State University through the NC State Faculty Research & Professional Development Fund and the NC State Summer REU program.

Global supply chains comprise complex networks, making them particularly vulnerable. The UK is a prime example of this, where logistics problems are currently resulting in empty supermarket shelves and closed gas stations. Fraunhofer experts provide IT solutions that counteract supply bottlenecks in international goods traffic and maintain robust supply chains.

Earthquakes in South America, floods in Germany or political unrest in Asia: all compromise supply chains. A research team at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWM is developing mathematical methods that can be used to calculate how to minimize risks to supply chains. “Mathematically speaking,” explains Dr. Heiner Ackermann, Deputy Head of Optimization – Operations Research, “these disruptive events create a multidimensional decision problem.”    

Cushioning risks without additional costs
Ackermann’s team of experts analyze the properties of supply chains using mathematical models. The failure scenarios simulated on the basis of these calculations show at which points there is a greater need for action. In the second step, the researchers focus on holistic optimization – for a more robust supply chain that can cushion risks without incurring major costs. The experts package all variables into a multicriteria optimization problem. In this way, they determine the best possible solution for the triad of resilience, cost and risk. Algorithms calculate the optimum balance and with it various options for raw materials, suppliers and warehousing. Even the use of alternative materials is considered. The top priority: as few assumptions as possible. “Our work has set the ball rolling – companies that previously relied on Excel spreadsheets and their gut feeling are now engaging in very fruitful discussions,” explains Ackermann, adding: “Whether you are dealing with supply chains or supply networks, mathematics is a universal and very effective tool.”

Early detection of potential supply shortages
The Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML also offers highly effective support for testing and optimizing supply chains with its Order-To-Delivery-NETwork (OTD-NET) simulator. Thanks to this tool, planning and material flow processes from order to delivery can be continuously assessed. “OTD-NET maps even highly complex supply chains in full and at all levels, including the planning and information flow processes. Using various parameters, it is possible to accurately model cooperation between supply chain partners on the computer,” specifies Marco Motta, Head of Supply Chain Engineering at Fraunhofer IML.
 
Combining digital twins of supply chains with simulations
The tool set examines networks particularly with regard to customer promises in terms of delivery reliability and quality, etc., costs, environmental considerations and, in the analysis of alternative scenarios, resilience. “In the simulation, I can easily play around with demand peaks, a slump in the respective market or scenarios in which production is disrupted,” explains the Fraunhofer IML expert. In this way, forecasts can be made about how a supply chain will react in a state of emergency. Logistics assistance systems that combine a digital twin of the supply chain with simulations show dispatchers which cargo ships have loaded which parts, where these are located and when the consignment will be available at the required location. Supply for the next 20–30 weeks can thus be depicted for global networks, enabling potential bottlenecks to be detected early on. Tracking is also a distinguishing feature of the solution for demand and capacity management. Not only is the number of parts affected displayed but planners can also directly see the impact of this on the whole of production.
 
Most recently, both the automotive and medical sectors have suffered from supply bottlenecks. Saskia Sardesai, Senior Scientist at Fraunhofer IML, is leading different research projects in which OTD-NET is being used to increase resilience in value creation networks for medical supplies. “Especially smaller and medium-sized companies were addressing this problem using existing spreadsheet analysis tools. However, this approach does not identify dynamics.” This is where OTD-NET comes into play: The simulation dynamically shows over a long period whether all parts will be at the right location at the right time. “If all parts are available except for those from my transatlantic supplier and there is no alternative supplier in Europe, I will quickly have a break in my chain lasting over a month,” outlines the specialist.

Increasing the European manufacturing sector’s resilience to future pandemics In the European research project “CO-VERSATILE”, overseen by Sardesai, participants are doing everything in their power to increase the European manufacturing sector’s resilience to future pandemics. The supply chain should be able to react quickly and effectively to a sudden spike in demand for strategic medical supplies. To that end, experts at Fraunhofer IML have developed a simulation model that takes into account future peaks and fluctuations in demand as well as supplier risks. Companies are immediately given an overview of which effects they will have to face. “We have created very simple models to facilitate rapid feedback and implementation for a variety of companies,” explains the project manager. Particular attention was paid to capacities, lead times, transportation frequency and possible supply restrictions. Users can see how individual factors interplay – an invaluable advantage compared to the long-standing Excel solution.

The productivity of a laundry depends on unbroken process flows and transparent commodity streams. Thanks to increasing digitalisation and consistent integration of data, the through-put of textiles in laundries is being continually improved. The solutions required for automation in the sector are therefore a high priority at Texcare International, from 20 to 24 June in Frankfurt am Main.
 
The be-all and end-all for the laundry sector is the ability to monitor the quantity, quality and storage location of the textiles that are circulating on site, at all times. The data collected form the basis for precise price calculations, throw up any weak points in the system and serve to provide documentation for third parties. But it is only when all the machinery and plant involved in a given textile service are interlinked on a single network that the logistics of the laundry service run seamlessly, with minimal down-time of the machinery, reduced quantities in circulation and the resultant increase in productivity that is closely associated with it.

Transparent tracking for each individual laundry item
Automation in the processing of workwear is already well advanced. As the dirty laundry is sorted on arrival, each item is recorded using an identification system such as a barcode or RFID technology. From this moment on, all the stages that the textiles undergo are controlled. ‘Readers’ or ‘gates’ on the premises enable each item to be recorded as it progresses through the system, right up to the point of order picking; and they monitor whether an item is sent to a repair station or directed into storage. In addition, high-frequency transponders (UHF tags) can monitor the movements of laundry items outside of the laundry: in hospitals, for instance, identification systems have been installed, which record the despatch and return of apparel and enable an extensive process of textile management via data transfer procedures.

Robots for the soiled laundry area
This already high degree of automation in a workwear laundry facility is, however, capable of still further refinement. Artificial intelligence can simplify the ‘dirty’ work in the reception area: robots separate and sort the soiled clothing and x-ray machines, cameras and metal detectors are used to identify any foreign bodies. The advantages of such systems are particularly in evidence in hospital laundries: medical instruments, which regularly find their way into the laundry bags, are automatically separated from the clothing, thus minimising damage to the items themselves and to the machinery. The useful life of the textiles is extended and costs are reduced. Moreover, there is no danger of infection for the staff.

Real-time laundry processes
Whilst individual control and traceability are already widespread in the professional treatment of work apparel, when it comes to flat linen, often only generalisations about quantity, quality and storage location for the textiles are possible. “In order to assess a business’s efficiency, calculate prices and efficiently control processes and procedures, laundries need reliable figures […],” observes Martin Rauch, CSO of the Jensen Group, who operate on a worldwide basis.

In the pursuit of automated production, ultra-modern information and communications technologies assume a key role. They synchronise the machines involved in a given production process and facilitate communication and cooperation between plant, product and the human being. This way, you get self-organising, flexible production with unbroken processes and high levels of utilisation of equipment. With the synchronisation of commodity streams and information flow in the laundry, all items arrive at the right processing station at the appropriate time. A central database controls all the processes in the entire laundry, regulates the machinery and the linked sub-systems, chooses the correct processing programmes and optimises machine use.
 
Data accompanies the laundry throughout
“Trolleys of laundry standing around, waiting times at the machines, excessive buffering and time spent searching for items are all lost capital […],” says Matthias Schäfer, who is responsible for product management, laundry logistics / smart laundry at Kannengiesser (Vlotho).

When data and goods flows are successfully synchronised throughout a flat-linen laundry, each washing station contributes its information along with that of other stations, right from the initial sorting of the soiled linen through to the folding machines. The laundry can, therefore, be monitored throughout the entire operation, as the information from each station is sent on with the item, either automatically or – after the drier – in the form of bar-coded labels. (“Stabilisation of production through the synchronisation of material and production flows.”)

RFID identification systems do indeed enable complete transparency to be built into the passage of goods through the various stages, as each chip or tag carries the necessary information for each individual item. In view of the high cost of the transponders, ‘chipping’ of flat linen is, however, currently an option for only very few laundries. So the textile care sector is waiting on more economical, more functionally reliable solutions from the machinery and plant manufacturers.
 
Smart to the very end of the chain
Further potential for automation resides in the picking and packaging. Collecting together items for delivery manually is subject to error and that leads to customer complaints. With intelligent storage facilities and transport solutions, smart stacking management and the networking of equipment with the laundry’s information system, order picking becomes simpler, quicker and more reliable. To ensure that the integration can function, modern machines are equipped with interfaces, so that each new installation can be linked seamlessly into a laundry’s existing system. The same goes for accessory machines, which exchange all the important information relating to preparation and repair online.

User friendly apps
Digital developments are not only large scale: they are to be found on a smaller scale as well. For launderettes, too, apps provide important information on the status of the equipment, enable operators to see what is going on, even at considerable distances, as well as being able to provide digital payment models. Moreover, in heavily used laundry facilities, they can take on the entire job of time management, as Andreas Barduna, Head of Business Management, Miele Professional (Gütersloh) is very aware.

At Texcare International, from 20 to 24 June 2020, machinery and plant manufacturers from all over the world will be presenting their smart solutions for the laundries of tomorrow. The focus will be very much on artificial intelligence and smart information systems, which will help maximize the degree of automation within the sector.

• The industry kicks off the new year with a dynamic start

imm cologne drew to a close on 19 January 2020, with positive overall results. More than 128,000 visitors (including estimates for the last day of the trade fair) attended the event to find inspiration from the industry. Going against the trend for other industry trade fairs held early in the year, imm cologne achieved an increase in visitors compared to the most recent similar edition of the event (2018: 125,000 visitors).

As in previous years, imm cologne also had a very strong international profile. Of the 82,000 trade visitors (2018: 80,704) around 50 per cent came from outside Germany. Despite the concentration visible in the German wholesale and retail trade, the event recorded a small rise in domestic trade visitors, again bucking the trend in recent years. “With these results, imm cologne not only underscores its prominent position in the global business; the increase in planners, architects and contract furnishers from Germany further emphasises its importance for the German market,” said Gerald Böse, President and Chief Executive Officer of Koelnmesse. The Managing Director of the Association of the German Furniture Industry, Jan Kurth, also gave the event a highly positive verdict: “For the exhibitors, imm cologne was a commercially successful trade fair that allowed the industry to make an excellent start to the 2020 furniture year. Cologne has once again demonstrated its significance as a platform for contacts and inspiration but also as an ordering fair. Together with all those involved, we will continue to strengthen the importance of this key event in a transforming market environment.”
 
The eight most important living trends of imm cologne 2020
How we live is important to us. An ever increasing number of people are considering how they can live and reside more sustainably, where they will live, with whom they will live, how their apartment should look so they can feel at home there and what the furnishings of their homes say about them. The international interiors show imm cologne is a mirror image of current interiors trends and demonstrates the inventiveness of furniture makers.

Interior design is currently becoming increasingly cosy, and the theme of comfort appears to be dominating not only private living space, but also property and hospitality areas. Following the bathroom, the entrance area is now also being discovered as an object of design. The wish for a good interior design appears to become all the more important, the more one wishes to or is forced to limit oneself to a few, high-quality furnishing elements. This is because, conscious limitation toa little is one of the trends characterising contemporary interior design.

Like in fashion, the pendulum seems to be moving from "more and more and cheaper and cheaper" toward a relative orientation to quality. In the process, there seem to be two stylistically and qualitatively differentiating main directions: while the interiors culture characterised by the design scene continues to prefer a reduced, simpler language of form with natural expression and materials, more glamour is called for in more traditional and in fashionable interiors worlds: it should be refined, be originally expressive and possess classic charm.

Yes, living is becoming more important. This is also an increasingly decisive factor for how life is organised, with concepts like co-working and co-living, the patchwork house or urban gardens. More thought is also being given to the things we bond ourselves with, and we tend to look twice before a decision is made in favour of a good piece. An orientation to quality does not necessarily exclude the search for bargains. While one person might research prices, the other researches the previous life of the item of furniture, including the origin of the materials, recycling capability and general harmlessness with regard to nature, climate and social standards. All agree that we want to live better: more comfortably, more stylishly, using space more effectively, more colourfully, smarter and more sustainably.

More natural living   
An ever increasing number of people are seriously attempting to change their consumer behaviour in order to initiate a trend turnaround toward a sustainable society. Consumer decisions with regard to mobility, mobile phone or nutrition, just as much as for furniture, are being increasingly evaluated under the aspect of climate neutrality. The story behind the product, the storytelling, is thus becoming more important all the time. This means that natural materials and solid wood are preferred in the home, not only for reasons of cosiness, but also with an eye to ecological considerations. Supporting decorative items, such as plants, untreated fabrics and indoor greenhouses are becoming important furnishing elements for home design and are also conceived of as statements. Furniture of high design quality also holds the promise of sustainability.

Wood and natural materials, but also lightweight design and recycling materials are being used everywhere where they are functional, meaning also for products that are usually manufactured from other materials. Bamboo is being tried out as an alternative to wood, just as much as plastic-reinforced paper as a leather-like upholstery fabric. Wickerwork of rattan, willow or bamboo brings a winter garden feeling into the house. The longing for natural living is keeping the trend toward Scandinavian design alive. It is after all associated with a near-natural, uncomplicated and original, rustic lifestyle, which is expressed in the traditionally simple design cultivated in the 20th century.

Greener living
We increasingly want to be close to nature: no new apartments are being built without balconies; apartments and houses with access to gardens or patios are in high demand, especially in urban areas. These touchpoints with nature are now also becoming an integral part of our homes, with patios taking on the role of a second living room. In the wake of the "Indoor – Outdoor" trend, weatherproof outdoor furniture now not only looks like it comes from the living room, it is also used there! Elegant materials and high-tech textiles also make it possible for them to be used indoors. An aesthetic difference is hardly recognisable in the upper price segment and, in the case of the new indoor/outdoor furniture, the comfort of use is also increasingly comparable. In the case of outdoor colours, the colour grey seems to have passed its zenith. White positioned itself as the base colour for outdoor furniture at the spoga-gafa trade fair in Cologne.

The furniture that suits this trend in some cases resembles that from the trend of more natural living: bamboo and wickerwork furniture is popular, but wicker armchairs of high-tech materials and more fashionable accents are also opportune. Plants are found as accessories not only in pots, but also on wallpaper. Green can be found in all shades.
 
Smarter Living  
Can we use an app to grow herbs? Can computers nurture plants to improve air quality? Does the climate have an impact on building services? Does a smart control system switch off the lights and the coffee machine when you leave the house? Smart applications are becoming ever more diverse, reliable and easy to use and can be tailored increasingly precisely to the specific needs of residents. As a result, smart technologies are increasingly playing a key role in architecture. Whether computer-controlled optimisation of indoor air quality, the innovative control and operation of shower toilets or the anticipatory and energy-optimised regulating of room temperature, smart technology is being increasingly integrated into the way we live.

Lamps that serve as Bluetooth loudspeakers; night tables with cordless mobile phone charging stations; cabinets that provide mood lighting; mirror cabinets with multimedia function, tables that adjust to our ideal amount of movement and sofas that note the individual favourite seating position; lights that help us fall asleep and beds that nudge us gently into another position when we snore. Technology is becoming an integral, ideally inconspicuous element of furniture.

More efficient living
Rising rents and smaller homes will continue to drive the demand for space-saving furniture. The first wave of the trend toward tidiness and renunciation aesthetics has already reached us from the USA and Asia. Renouncing consumption and restricting ourselves to the essential things in life are strategies for creating order in the home. And more and more people are finding this approach extremely beneficial. Order is trendy, so anything else is once again “uncool”. Quality over quantity could therefore be the perfect home furnishing philosophy for many people, especially as it is also consistent with the desire for natural living.
          
A trend for some time now has been small and compact sofas and armchairs with a design often oriented to classic typologies. Even more sought after in future will be affordable system furniture and compact individual items, which are scalable (adaptable to different room dimensions), variable (pull-out technology, etc.) and versatile. Life on a second level is also becoming trendy; the high sleeper is making a comeback. In view of the wide range of applications for such furniture systems, from the mini-apartment to the loft, suppliers are, however, attaching great importance to modern aesthetics in an urban living style that goes far beyond any teenager’s bedroom atmosphere.

Living more comfortably
We are worth it! Comfort is written in capital letters in every home (no matter how small), especially in the bedroom. However, investments are also being made in the bathroom and seating furniture. Comfort also involves several standards of building services; keywords here include the heated car seat, heated or cooled rooms. Compact, design-oriented seating, such as two-seater sofas or armchairs, is the trend in the upper product segment. Here, special attention is paid to ergonomics. Console table, wall rest tables or small shelves not only assure a sense of order in everyday life, but are instead an integral element of interior design.
          
And the favourite place for a comfortable hammock is found not only in the garden. It began with stools, and now bench seats, with and without backrests, have also been given soft upholstery to add a comfortable highlight to the kitchen and dining area. For sofas, the trend is toward a platform raised off the floor, which lifts the cushions to a higher level, as well as toward individualisation and adjustability. Integrated occasional tables are a theme.

Living without limits
The requirements of living are currently changing quite rapidly. More sophisticated singles apartments with a scarce offering of space and a lifestyle that also seeks freedom from conventions when it comes to furnishings are reinforcing the trend toward generously dimensioned one-room apartments with a loft feeling. These are complemented by one or two work rooms or bedrooms as needed. The flowing into one another of the rooms leads to a need for multifunctional furniture that marks living areas or delimits them from one another. Kitchen and living merge, the bathroom remains separate, if also, at least in the high price range, "en suite" and a little bit bigger. Instead of separate rooms, modern apartments present an open spatial structure, and compartmentalised apartments in old buildings are "aired out" through the removal of wall elements. Winter gardens and converted attics open up bright spaces, and generously dimensioned window fronts, ideally opening without thresholds, also optically expand the space outwards.

With the exception of built-in cabinets, single items of furniture are called for. Consistent collections and walls of cabinets in the living room encumber the feeling of freedom too much; mix & match is better suited. However, the single items of furniture must be combinable to this purpose. Finding the right balance in the design, autonomous, but not extroverted, pleasing but not boring, is the art of this furniture with classic qualities. Multifunctional furniture like tables that function convincingly as a workplace and dining area, freestanding sofas, cabinets that function as storage space and wall elements, room partitions that enable functions on both sides (like integrating the pivoting monitor that can be used from both sides), mobile furniture for indoors and outdoors; these are the heroes of living without limits.

Colourful living
Among the colour trends in interior design, brown is surely the one with the strongest impact, because it can be used both neutrally and in an avant garde fashion. On the whole, shades of brown are responsible for cosiness and are therefore currently very popular. While things are very harmonious in the range from greige through taupe to moor oak, the combination of, for example, nougat brown with other, mostly reserved colours (meaning not used in neon or pastel) ranging from orange to turquoise is also quite bold. However, whether with green, pink, purple or brown, colour brings glamour into the apartment. Dark wood shades, reminiscent of Art Deco or Danish modernity, with gold, brass or other metallic accents on sumptuous rugs stand for pure luxury. While the overall interior design trend is toward dark colours, from dark greens and blues to black, the minimalist interiors style remains loyal to the lighter and more natural shades. Avant-gardists pledge themselves to the Bauhaus tradition with primary colours colourfully combined with a white base colour. However, the interiors scene as a whole is becoming more colourful through the intensive use of colour schemes. Monochromaticity is also being increasingly abandoned in favour of patterns.

Decorative living
After clothing, living is today the number one means of expression. We are not only what we wear, but how we live. This makes every decorative element a statement. The basis for any eyecatcher is a space to make an impact. Tidy optics and decorative elements thus don't need to contradict one another. Lifestyle and the decorative are staged, on the wall elements, in the textiles, on the floor … or also behind (illuminated) glass. Each element and each item of furniture is simultaneously a decorative element. Which is why single products are preferred over homogeneous interior design with the furniture of a collection. Lights adjust to any furnishing style and are increasingly used as an optical highlight of the space. Designer lights are now what the folding table on rollers was in the 1970s.
     
Both mirrors and pictures are readily used as design elements: the classic here is the circular mirror in all versions; here the mirrors are often used graphically (thus pronouncedly two dimensionally) and bring depth to the room. As cement or Metro tiles, tiles transform from tepid floor coverings to the cool highlight at the kitchen bar, in special sections of the wall or in the entrance area. On the walls, it is wallpaper with small and large-format patterns that turn a room into a veritable work of art. On the floor, rugs with geometrical patterns, floral elements or graphic fancies provide accents, here too as a single product again. Oval shapes are especially pronounced, and, among furniture items, the sideboard is by far the most decorative: not only as a presentation surface, but also as a type.

• Forgery-safe Branded Fashion via washable Authentification Certificate

In 2014 German customs seized about 1.3 million counterfeit garments and accessories worth EUR 10.94 million. Particularly renowned brands suffer from piracy and try using different measures, such as hologram labels or special sewing yarns to protect their fashion - so far with little success, because professional counterfeiters can copy these marks most convincing.

But that could change now: As the first brand apparel manufacturer the Swiss wederundgut ag recently added on their UNiSONO -Shirts a labeling with a lanthanide-based SARD - safety substance which is completely tamper-proof due to high-covalent and doped crystal lattice. It has a unique, tailored composition with individual emission spectra and can be detected and deciphered only with an especially for this application developed laser measuring instrument. The incorporation in a multi-layer, firmly with the shirt fabric glued label, the marking cannot be destroyed neither by the wash liquor nor by mechanical influences during the washing process.

"Brand counterfeiting is becoming more and more a problem for the fashion industry.  Especially well-known brands are suffering from the proliferation of plagiarism" Ueli Fish, CEO of wederundgut ag, explains. "It is therefore in our own interest as textile manufacturers, to find ways to make our products clearly marked as identifiable originals."

Within the sector many protective measures have already been tried, but without achieving a long term desired effect: One company for example works with holograms on the label. For professional plagiarists a hologram provides no bigger hurdle in these days, stated Dieter Ebert, CTO at the product protection specialist swiss authentication research and development AG (SARD) explains. As another possibility sewing threads will be soaked with safety fluids. "The disadvantage is that all known substances will sooner or later be completely washed out of the fabric in the washing process," the expert said. Several manufacturers of high-quality functional wear labeled their products temporarily with RFID chips. However, they also were destroyed in the washing process sooner or later - partly through the water, partially mechanically, so that this solution has been abandoned. Others prefer to educate their customers trying to explain differences between original and copied patches.

Individual, clearly identifiable marking

For the marking with the by SARD developed safety substance wederundgut ag decided due to the utter counterfeit security and adaptability for different applications. "The substance contains a custom mixture of lanthanides, which form a very complex, high-covalent and doped crystal lattice," the CTO explains. "In the production of a patented process at a defined point some foreign substances in the smallest amounts will be added that changes the emission spectrum significantly." By excitation in the UV or IR range the substance sends the customized optical spectra. These are stored in an associated detector, which has been developed by SARD for this application, and can only be recognized by the latter. All mixtures of the substance are stable at temperatures far above 1,700°C, resistant to acids, bases and radiation, highly resistant to chemicals and toxicologically safe. The particles, which generally have a size of about 1 to 10 microns, also allow no interactions with any other substances.

A decisive advantage of the substance is that the production process is not possible to replicate due to the artificial emission spectra: "Through the endowment spectra will be generated, of which it cannot be determined which elements are involved. Therefor a replica of the substance through reverse engineering is not possible, Ebert says.

Also the laser measuring device cannot be manipulated, since it has its own software and a virus free operating system and uses for algorithm and cryptography the FPGA technology. When evaluating the marking SARD also focuses on the key-lock principle: "The two independent emission spectra of custom substances serve as the key. They are stimulated and measured by the two independent laser systems of the detector”, so the CTO. “Decoding is performed with in the device stored, cryptographically encrypted information. They therefore act as a lock." Only when the correct substance is detected, a protected algorithm shows the customer-specific information on the display of the detector. This feature ensures a highly secure authentication.

Not leachable substance

In addition to the protection against forgery wederundgut is demanding further properties on the marking. "The label should not get an optically negative change, should be completely hypoallergenic and should remain from the cost point on an acceptable level," Fish says. The most important point for the textile manufacturer however was, that even after repeated washing the substance remains detectable: "That was at first a great challenge for us," Ebert says. "If we would have brought he SARD-substance in a conventional manner into the material, for example just with a color - as with solutions of other manufacturers - then there would have been the risk that the substance would be washed out by the surfactants of the detergent. Therefore we had to find at first a suitable carrier material. Together with the Munich label specialists RATHGEBER GmbH & Co. KG SARD finally developed a solution in which the substance will be incorporated into an iron-on label made of plastic composite material from which it cannot be removed. "This label is produced in several layers," Ebert says. "In one of them the SARD-substance will be incorporated and permanently sealed with another layer."

The label corresponds optically with the known company label of UNiSONO, the safety substance is difficult to detect with the bare eye. The final label is, among other things, resistant to alkalis, chemical cleaning agents, UV radiation, mechanical stress, acids, weather influences and keeps temperatures from -30 to 120°C. It will be ironed onto the shirt using a special hot-melt adhesive. This agent is very resistant and does not dissolve from the fabric, even at very frequent washing as is common for example in sports clothing. "At this project together with SARD we achieved great results very fast. With the current result, a very uncomplicated solution for us, we are very satisfied,” Fish explains, who puts the security label directly in the clothing factory on the shirts. “In the future we'd like to get a label that is even more soft and thinner than the current one. We intend to work on it together with SARD," the CEO said.