Page 60 - April-May-2020

60 E-textile developed with 3D
Whats New printer depositing conductive
fibers onto fabric
Different material can be assembled as coaxial layer for development of versatile smart textiles. Using
this technique energy scavenging and energy storage textiles have been developed with extraordinary
performance.
3D printer is developed by researchers of China at Tsinghua University, Beijing, they deposited
electronic fibers onto the textile and their finding has been published in Matter. The printed pattern can
harvest and store energy onto transitioned fabric.
The prescribed approach is different from manually sewn electrical components like LED fibers onto
the fabric because of being labor intensive and time consuming, while 3D printer equipped with coaxial
needles can build versatile features in single step consuming less time with cost effectiveness.
Resolution of print is limited to size of needles and mechanical movement accuracy of printer.
Yingying Zhang, professor in the Department of Chemistry at Tsinghua University stated, “the
developed 3D printer could be used for energy management purposes, as it can print conductive fibers
wrapped by insulated material directly onto textiles with home-made multiple co-axial needles,
providing the opportunity to make multifunctional e-textiles with compositional diversity and function
designing, which otherwise would not be possible to achieve with single nozzle printing single ink.
April/May 2020
New Karl Mayer raschel machine for 77
KARL MAYER launches new raschel machine for nonwoven Whats New
nonwoven bonding
bonding. The new raschel machine for nonwoven bonding,
RACOP 2-NW, will be presented at Techtextil. This efficient
nonwoven machine processes fibrous webs to
stitch-bonded nonwovens, and scores points by
technological advantages. Unlike their chemically bonded
counterparts, these nonwovens are elastic, voluminous
and, thus, virtually textile.
Moreover, the stitch-bonding process requires considerably
less energy than thermal methods. In addition, the RACOP
2-NW impresses by an excellent price-performance ratio
and highest flexibility. During KARL MAYER’s in-house
show, a RACOP 2-NW will produce a fabric in a gauge of E
14 intended for the application field of heating textiles. The
heating effect can be tested on a demonstrator module.
ESMETEX, generating an online
fabric sourcing platform
Taiwan based company Esmetex for fabric sourcing and production, is currently launching a platform with world’s
largest online fabric database. This platform is digitizing the fabric supply chain from development to inspection then
3-D garment design. It contains over 18,000 fabrics from Esmetex’s own mill and outside 25 mills under their
management- with approximately 1000 items adding/month. The company has planned to work with leading brands
and national retailors to add more articles from their partners to develop an integrated system where all customer’s
vendor fabric details are available digitally on single click.
Esmetex claimed that the Frontier digital platform can cut the creative development cycle by more than two weeks,
by brilliantly gathering and organizing information from the supply chain as per requirement. Environmental aspects
of platform are also highlighted by Esmetex. All the fabric are available digitally with every detail, therefore, instead of
manufacturing new fabric the already existing can be used, reducing the hazardous effects of finishes and dyestuffs,
saving the resources and increasing the cost effectiveness.
Brands and retailers can access the quality of fabric due to frontier inspection app. Due to available online QC report
for every fabric. Moreover, defects can be assessed and managed during garment cutting reducing the wastage.
April/May 2019