SWIFT: Smart Wearable Intelligent Fibre-based Technology
Lead Research Organisation:
Imperial College London
Department Name: Chemistry
Abstract
Technology and our economy in general, usually advance either by incremental steps (e.g. scaling the size and number of transistors on a chip) or by quantum leaps (transition from vacuum tubes to semiconductor technologies). Disruptive technologies behind such revolutions are usually underpinned by new form of materials with dramatic, orders of magnitude improvements in applications, which change many aspects of our life simultaneously, penetrating every corner of our existence.
Wearable technologies present a market opportunity in excess of $53 billion [Soreon '15] in RCUK priority areas such as healthcare, wellbeing and Internet of Things (IoT). Current wearable technologies rely on rigid electronic components mounted on flexible materials such as plastic films. These offer limited compatibility with the skin in many circumstances, suffer washing and are uncomfortable to wear because they are not breathable.
Turning fibres into functional electronic components can address these problems. Work is already underway to have synthetic fibres with electronic functionality. However, issues such as breathability, washability and comfort still remain, as these are properties associated with natural materials.
This project will enable natural fibres such as cotton and wool to show basic electronic functions such as conductivity and light emission. SWIFT will demonstrate the potential of this approach, create impact and raise awareness. Further work would lead to greater functionality: i.e. sensing.
SWIFT aims to demonstrate new cotton-based optoelectronic fibre components that offer breathability, washability and compatibility with the skin. The project will exploit existing nanomaterials, functional organic materials and polymer composite technology together with the know-how on nanotechnology existing in Cambridge to develop conductive and light-emitting cotton/cellulose fibres that could be woven to make fibre-based, stretchable conductive and light-emitting fabrics for future textile-based wearable displays, sensors or smart patches with potential applications in healthcare, wellbeing, IoT, lighting, sensing.
Wearable technologies present a market opportunity in excess of $53 billion [Soreon '15] in RCUK priority areas such as healthcare, wellbeing and Internet of Things (IoT). Current wearable technologies rely on rigid electronic components mounted on flexible materials such as plastic films. These offer limited compatibility with the skin in many circumstances, suffer washing and are uncomfortable to wear because they are not breathable.
Turning fibres into functional electronic components can address these problems. Work is already underway to have synthetic fibres with electronic functionality. However, issues such as breathability, washability and comfort still remain, as these are properties associated with natural materials.
This project will enable natural fibres such as cotton and wool to show basic electronic functions such as conductivity and light emission. SWIFT will demonstrate the potential of this approach, create impact and raise awareness. Further work would lead to greater functionality: i.e. sensing.
SWIFT aims to demonstrate new cotton-based optoelectronic fibre components that offer breathability, washability and compatibility with the skin. The project will exploit existing nanomaterials, functional organic materials and polymer composite technology together with the know-how on nanotechnology existing in Cambridge to develop conductive and light-emitting cotton/cellulose fibres that could be woven to make fibre-based, stretchable conductive and light-emitting fabrics for future textile-based wearable displays, sensors or smart patches with potential applications in healthcare, wellbeing, IoT, lighting, sensing.
Planned Impact
The goal of the project is to identify the technology and produce opto-electronic fibres that are washable, breathable and compatible with the human skin as required by healthcare, sports and wellbeing applications. This will also act as a knowledge base to improve wearable electronic and optoelectronic devices through new functional textile components and to deliver cutting edge advances in the sustainable manufacturing, design, testing and integration of novel 1D fibre-based multi-functional opto-electronic components (e.g., light emitting and conductive) with traditional cotton/wool fabrics. Thus, this project will deliver both economic impact, by stimulating new UK-manufactured high-value products, and societal benefits, by utilising the resulting opto-electronic fibres in potentially many areas of flexible and wearable electronics including quality of life, energy efficiency and security. The beneficiaries of the project will be the UK's national chemical, textile, healthcare, fashion, electronic and polymer industries but will extend more widely. Considering the private sector, I have already identified several companies that will benefit from this work. To ease the transition to commercialisation, the proposal has strong alignment with industry needs and engages players as project collaborators: SmartLife, HeathCoat, Novalia.
More broadly, the functional fibre processing will lead to technological advances ranging from wearable body sensors (blood pressure, motion, glucose) and fibre-based healthcare devices (wearable skin-treatment and rehabilitation devices, smart patches) to wearable displays, and could impact products in multiple industries, from mobile communications, electronics and photonics, to healthcare, lighting and fashion. Engagement with industrial UK and global players in these sectors is thus crucial to maximise the impact. Policy-makers will also benefit from SWIFT, new policies will facilitate new commercial products with attraction of further R&D investments in UK. The introduction of fibre-based opto-electronic products will contribute to address national societal challenges such as accessible healthcare treatment for resource-poor areas, sustainable economic development and growth: offering cost-effective, low-power, safe and bio-compatible products for treatment and rehabilitation that will facilitate democratisation of healthcare treatments.
SWIFT will inspire also academic research environments, contribute to fresh ideas and new research opportunities in electronics, materials science and textiles. The novel fibre-based material will stimulate the investigation and modelling of the fibre's mechanical properties (such as elongation, compression, torsion, elastic modulus and fracture strength) as well as impact the research on continuous fibres manufacturing with desired properties.
Moreover, the results of this project will give immediate return to the local academic players such as the University of Cambridge, the Nanoscience Centre, the GCG, Graphene CDT and CIMLAE by engagement with various research groups (Profs. Kim and Sirringhaus) and other relevant research projects in the field (EU-project 1D-NEON).
More broadly, the functional fibre processing will lead to technological advances ranging from wearable body sensors (blood pressure, motion, glucose) and fibre-based healthcare devices (wearable skin-treatment and rehabilitation devices, smart patches) to wearable displays, and could impact products in multiple industries, from mobile communications, electronics and photonics, to healthcare, lighting and fashion. Engagement with industrial UK and global players in these sectors is thus crucial to maximise the impact. Policy-makers will also benefit from SWIFT, new policies will facilitate new commercial products with attraction of further R&D investments in UK. The introduction of fibre-based opto-electronic products will contribute to address national societal challenges such as accessible healthcare treatment for resource-poor areas, sustainable economic development and growth: offering cost-effective, low-power, safe and bio-compatible products for treatment and rehabilitation that will facilitate democratisation of healthcare treatments.
SWIFT will inspire also academic research environments, contribute to fresh ideas and new research opportunities in electronics, materials science and textiles. The novel fibre-based material will stimulate the investigation and modelling of the fibre's mechanical properties (such as elongation, compression, torsion, elastic modulus and fracture strength) as well as impact the research on continuous fibres manufacturing with desired properties.
Moreover, the results of this project will give immediate return to the local academic players such as the University of Cambridge, the Nanoscience Centre, the GCG, Graphene CDT and CIMLAE by engagement with various research groups (Profs. Kim and Sirringhaus) and other relevant research projects in the field (EU-project 1D-NEON).
People |
ORCID iD |
| Felice Torrisi (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Taale M
(2019)
Biomimetic Carbon Fiber Systems Engineering: A Modular Design Strategy To Generate Biofunctional Composites from Graphene and Carbon Nanofibers.
in ACS applied materials & interfaces
Wang T
(2023)
Hot Carrier Cooling and Trapping in Atomically Thin WS2 Probed by Three-Pulse Femtosecond Spectroscopy.
in ACS nano
Mezzapesa FP
(2020)
Terahertz Frequency Combs Exploiting an On-Chip, Solution-Processed, Graphene-Quantum Cascade Laser Coupled-Cavity.
in ACS photonics
Carey T
(2021)
Inkjet Printed Circuits with 2D Semiconductor Inks for High-Performance Electronics
in Advanced Electronic Materials
Latham K
(2022)
Challenges and opportunities in free-standing supercapacitors research
in APL Materials
Spanu A
(2022)
Parylene C-Based, Breathable Tattoo Electrodes for High-Quality Bio-Potential Measurements.
in Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology
Ji X
(2020)
A graphene-based electro-thermochromic textile display
in Journal of Materials Chemistry C
Lund A
(2021)
Conducting materials as building blocks for electronic textiles.
in MRS bulletin
Fenech-Salerno B
(2023)
A sprayed graphene transistor platform for rapid and low-cost chemical sensing
in Nanoscale
Seyedin S
(2021)
Fibre electronics: towards scaled-up manufacturing of integrated e-textile systems.
in Nanoscale
| Title | A textile-based display |
| Description | In collaboration with partners at the Royal College of Arts, London and the University of Jiangnan, China we created a textile-based display demonstrator based on a design architecture developed within WEAVeING. The display layout takes the advantage of the textile form factor and novel materials, such as graphene and thermocromic dyes. The new design rules developed by WEAVeING together with the novel functional fibres and textiles developed by SWIFT provide a unique mix of methods, novel materials and models for an all-textile generation of wearable electronic devices. |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Impact | This demonstrator will benefit industry sectors in the areas of wearble devices for healthcare, sportswear and commodities, demonstrating an industrially viable and scalable route to develop reproducible all-textile electronic devices based on figures of merit and design rules. |
| URL | https://pubs.rsc.org/ko/content/articlehtml/2020/tc/d0tc03144e |
| Title | Textile batteries for wearable devices |
| Description | Our group used graphite exfoliated in solution and created what we call an ink or a dispersion of graphene in liquid, in this case a low-boiling ethanol or water, and we used this electrostatic, ionic interaction to ensure graphene sticks well to the fabric and withstands washing. |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Impact | We are working with a UK design studio to develop a new "natural lamp" concept using our textile batteries to power the LEDs of the lamp. |
| URL | https://www.iom3.org/materials-world-magazine/news/2019/jul/01/textile-batteries-wearable-devices |
| Description | SWIFT has developed inks of nanomaterials and two-dimensional materials (such as graphene and carbon nanotubes) in hybrid combination with organic polymers and natural fibres (cotton, cellulose). The viscosity range of the inks allows the production of conducting fibres by extrusion, wet spinning and fibre coating. This was the first of the main objectives and it has been achieved in perfect alignment with the proposed project plan. Wet spinning has revealed the most suitable way to produce conductive and flexible functional fibres achieving line resistance of 300 O cm-1 @ 10 µm diameter. These highly conducting fibres withstand 20 washing cycles with a sensitivity of <10% and uniaxial stain of more than 4%. Thanks to the optimisation of the process in collaboration with our partner Bandera, these specifications are superior to those predicted and expected for conductive fibre interconnects in the original proposal. The team has already implemented the production process flow of functional fibres suitable for uniform and controllable extrusion in collaboration with Bandera. The team has successfully wet-spun core-shell fibre creating fibre-based light emitting components. This multi-layer fibre uses the conducting fibre interconnects as core and a semiconducting shell as light emitting element (such as MoS2, organic light emitting polymers and PbS and CdS quantum dots). This development is in progress and it is in line with the proposed work-plan. Especially, this was enabled by a breakthrough in the synthesis of semiconducting 2D materials developed within the team which allowed high quality, robust and reproducible core-shell fibres. The conducting graphene/polymer inks have also been tested as conductive coatings onto cotton and polyester fabrics, demonstrating washable and environmentally friendly strain sensors and electrodes, suitable to be in contact with the skin without causing irritation. This results in a suitable application for strain or ECG sensors. More recently the team has developed a less viscous version of the graphene and h-BN inks, suitable for inkjet printing. The inks can be printed in a multi-layer junction, creating novel electronic devices onto fabrics. The team has demonstrated flexible and washable Thin Film Transistors (TFTs) and photodetectors on polyester fabric. This work has been successfully extended to demonstrate fully-printed integrated circuits on textiles, where reprogrammable memories, logic gates, signal amplifiers and inverters are composed of multiple all inkjet-printed TFTs on polyester fabric. The development of semiconducting light emitting fibres will be optimised targeting emission in the visible wavelength range. Moreover, the integration of the electronic fibres with rigid driver and control electronics is being investigated through developed new interconnection methods and compatible techniques for power supply and signal detection. A start-up named Textile Two-dimensional Ltd has already been created with the support of Cambridge Enterprise and the Royal Academy of Engineering to take the finding and the technology developed by SWIFT forward into industrially relevant fibre-based components and textiles, enabling an easy validation into healthcare, well-being and Internet of Things applications. Fully fibre-based optoelectronic components have been created. These encompass a highly conducting cotton fibres based on a graphene/Polytiophene blend with cotton fibrils designed for wet spinning. This composite allows to achieve ~ 70 O cm-1 @ 40 µm diameter. The conducting fibres have then been implemented as the conducting electrodes in fibre-based photodetectors and thin-film transistors with a photoresponsivity of 0.2mA/W and a mobility of 14 cm2 V-1 s-1, respectively. The electronic and optoelectornic fibres are washable and biocompativle as veryfied by toxicology and physiological measurements. Nine journal articles have been published on peer-reviewed high impact factor journals based on the finding of this project. The fibre-based technology developed here is being brought forward and enhanced by WEAVeING project, where integration techniques and manufacturing tools are being created to design and reproducibly scale-up textile devices. In particular, an example of this effective fibre-based device integration and new textile design resulted in the demonstration of a textile display combining the electronic fibres developed by SWIFT and the integration strategies being developed by WEAVeING. |
| Exploitation Route | - SSM Technology Ltd is joining Dr Torrisi's group at Imperial College with two visiting researchers for two years to push the efforts towards technology transfer in the area of smart textiles. - The EPSRC-funded adventurous manufacturing project WEAVeING is highly benefitting from the outputs of SWIFT, as it can rely on a new platform of all-fibre-based devices which are key to the development of design rules and manufacturing figures of merit for all-textile devices. |
| Sectors | Chemicals,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Electronics,Energy,Healthcare,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology |
| URL | https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/191316/washable-wearable-battery-like-devices-could-woven |
| Description | Economic impact: SWIFT's natural fibre-based technology is being disseminated to the UK industrial sector through direct interaction with relevant actors in key industrial fields: extrusion (Bandera), electronic textiles and wearable electronics (SmartLife, HeatCoat), printed electronics (Novalia). The collaboration with Bandera has succeeded in tailoring the extrusion of the graphene conducting fibres, which offer a large scale and high throughput manufacturing process of the conducting natural fibres. The collaboration with SmartLife and Heatcoat is targeting the smart fibre integration with general wear and the stability tests under standard washing cycles. Weaving of the graphene conducting fibres has recently been achieved into sportswear and a first demonstration of washable motion sensors and ECG detectors have been achieved. Metier Ltd is planning to optimise this process to an entire graphene-enabled section of their products. Moreover, Bandera has already made clear that they would aspire to industrialize the graphene fibres extrusion production. The engagement with other EPSRC/EU consortia investigating textile electronic integration platforms (such as H2020-NMP 1D-NEON or EPSRC EP/M015149/1) has offred contact with several industrial actors in the area of wearable electronics and smart textiles, with an opportunity to showcase SWIFT's technology (InnoLAE, IDTechEx tradeshow, the Wearable Technology Show, 1D-NEON project meetings), explore possible common scopes and set-up trial test to benchmark the impact of the fibre-based technology against the companies' business-as-usual or commercial wearable products. In particular, the team joined the EPSRC E-Textile Network which offers an excellent opportunity to showcase the project results to relevant academics, manufacturing catapults and industry partners. The team has been contacted by the national USA Cotton Association (Cotton USA) to prepare a demonstrator for Premier Vision 2020, the most highly regarded exhibition of future textiles and clothes products, incorporating electronic and optoelectronic devices. Unfortunately, the event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however the demonstrator was modified and brought forward into a commercial product by Metier Ltd. Moreover the team has already submitted a joint invention disclosure with the Clinical Engineering Group at NHS Addenbrooke's hospital to Cambridge Enterprise covering the invention of a wearable graphene textile smart patch for ECG monitoring based on SWIFT's technology. Societal impact: Dr Torrisi participated in several initiatives to promote public understanding of science in UK and abroad. SWIFT's results have achieved a huge highlight in the technical and general press, from blogs, to newspapers, TV and radio (including BBC, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Rai TV, La Repubblica, The Wall Street Journal, Vice.com). Dr Torrisi has been invited to deliver lectures and seminars at the University of Oxford, Imperial College London, University of Wurzburg, University of Pisa, University of Catania to promote social awareness on Engineering and Physical Sciences. Moreover, several outreach events (such as the Cambridge Science Festival and the Cambridge Science Centre Outreach day) have seen the active participation of members of the team to raise awareness of the science and technology behind SWIFT and disseminate the project's work and achievements. Dr Torrisi and Mr Carey authored numerous technology reviews in highly relevant scientific and general audience journals and magazines (e.g. Digital Textile, Nano Today, MRS Bulletin) this has showcased SWIFT's research to a large audience of textile experts and facilitate cross-collaboration with textile research and industry e.g. fashion and design such as the Royal College of Arts, the University of Art and University of Creative Arts in London, and the Manchester School of Art as well as CuteCircuit ltd and Google's Jacquard Team. Impact on the public and professional development: SWIFT has already resulted in a strong interaction with industrial partners "in the lab" to develop industrially relevant fibre production weaving and integration processes to facilitate the transferring of the know-how, production, prototyping of the opto-electronic fibres for upscaling the smart textiles technology. Dr Torrisi is also the module leader of an engineering teaching module in "Flexible and Wearable Electronics". This year he has introduced in the module three lectures about "electronic textiles" and SWIFT knowledge-base as a training for the future generation of electronic engineers. SWIFT has also strongly contributed to the professional development of staff working on the emerging field of fibre-based electronics. The interactive and coss-disciplinary work of SWIFT geenrated several new knowledge and manufacturing skills that forged staff working on the projec. As an example, HL hired by SWIFT developed tranferable skills in the area of functional fibre design, manufacturing, testing and integration which became fundamental when interacting with the industrial partners in order to achieve fibre integration and textile products. This new skills resulted in new processed being incorporated by Metier and Klopman in their production line. This cross-collaboration contributed to transfer these skills to industry and develop industrial collaborators professionally. Finally, the talks at conference and the workshop on e-textiles organised at InnoLAE 2019 as a part of SWIFT dissemination strategy, contributed to inform the general public and showcase the project results. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2020 |
| Sector | Chemicals,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Electronics,Energy,Healthcare,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Economic |
| Description | Invited by the Institute of Engineering and Technology for strategic workshop on the future of wearable electronics |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
| Impact | Invitation by the Institute of Engineering and Technology to disseminate SWIFT's results and propose novel innovation strategies in the area of fashion technology and wearable electronics for sportsware and fitire fashion trends. The talk has influenced and inspired several researched and managers in thte broad area of smart textiles. |
| Description | EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account imperial |
| Amount | £42,527 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/R511547/1 |
| Organisation | Imperial College London |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2020 |
| End | 01/2021 |
| Description | Industrial funding |
| Amount | £36,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | SSM Technology Ltd |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 04/2020 |
| End | 04/2023 |
| Title | Develped new and upscaled synthesis technique for 2D materials |
| Description | The group has developed a new process to synthesise large quantities of expremely pure graphene and 2D materials in solution. Based on a radical technology shift from the old-fashioned ultrasonication exfoliation, the new process is based on electrochemical exfoliation which results in a more efficient, upscalable and sutainable synthesis technique. The process is also very versatile, allowing a large range of dispersions of 2D materials to be manufactured. These in turn enabled novel e-fibres based functionalised with 2D materials exploting the semiconducting electronic nature of some 2D materials, resulting in unrivalled fibre-based photovoltaic devices. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The impact is in the everging field of smart textiles and textile energy materials for the generation and storage of energy from body motion and heat. |
| Title | Layered materials and methods for their processing |
| Description | The development of fibre-based electronic devices required an "ad hoc" method for producing nanoplates derived from a layered material, which could be incorporated with the textiles and fibres. In a joint effort SWIFT and WEVeING developed a patented method for the synthesis of nanoplatelets of layered materials optimised for the incorporation on fibres and textiles. Such a method is based on a solution based approach producing inks and dyes suitable for textile coating. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | This method will benefit textile manufacturers and industries operating in the wearable electronics sector (healthcare, sportswear and commodities) by providing a new method for the production of functional inks and coatings for advanced textiles. The inks have electrical and themal conductivity and are sensitive to visible light offering a platform of properties to enhance the functionality of textiles. The biocompatibility of the inks and their environmental stability combined with the sustainability of the process enable a robust life-cycle design of the electronic textiles. |
| URL | https://patents.google.com/patent/US10906814B2/en |
| Title | Large scale manufacturing of fibre-based electornic devices based on 2D materials |
| Description | We have developed a new process for quick and non-disruptive analysis of a large range of 2D materials in solution. The model is based on correlation of various spectroscopic and scattering techniques and allows litres of graphene and 2D material inks to be characterised in minutes. This alows quick process monitoring and feedback. |
| Type Of Material | Data analysis technique |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Enable reproducible and robust large scale manufacturing of composites devices with inks of graphene and 2D materials. Fibres based devices have a very large aspect ratio and this requiresed a large quantity of functional inks to be coated layer-by-layer on the fibre. With our techniques long wet-spun fibres can be continuously manufactured in a reproducible way, with a high yield. |
| Description | Collaboration with University of Southampton |
| Organisation | University of Southampton |
| Department | School of Electronics and Computer Science Southampton |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The development of smart conducting fibres within SWIFT has resulted in a solid ongoing collaboration with the group of Prof. Steve Beeby at the University of Southampton. This has already resulted in a presentation by Dr Torrisi during one of the E-textiles workshop organised at Southampton. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The group of Prof Beeby at Southampton University is leading the research on textile-based energy storage and generation devices. The collaboration with this group has enabled testing and validation of the smart conducting fibre electrodes and as integrated all-textile energy storage elements. Hybrid integration of e-textiles with other rigid and flexible electronic components is indeed a key element in the development of smart fabrics. This collaboration is helping us to investigate such integration aspect and benchmark our technology with state-of-the-art alternatives. |
| Impact | The outputs have succesfully resulted on the integration of conducting fibres and textiles developend within SWIFT (by graphene or other 2D material-based functionalisation of natural fibres) as a textile leyer component in energy storage devices such as electrochemical double layer supercapacitors or batteries. This resulted in an improvement of the energy storage capacity by more than one order of magnitude with respect to carbon-impregnated textile capacitors. More recently, the collaboration is developing integrated systems of textile supercapacitors (developed by SWIFT), novel advanced fibre integration strategies for textile electrothermochromic displays (being developed by WEAVeING) and triboelectric energy generators developed by the Southampton group. This has resulted already in several publications of integrated e-textile manufacturing strategies delivering textile-based circuits [Nature Commun. 8:1202], supercapacitors [Nanoscale 11:9912] for energy storage elements and textile-based displays [J. Mater. Chem. C 8:15788]. In co-creation with academics, industrial and manufacturing stakeholders we are preparing a new proposal for large a sustainable and large-scale manufacturing of functional e-textiles. |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Collaboration with the EPSRC E-Textiles Network - Prof. Barbara Shepherd |
| Organisation | Manchester Metropolitan University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Our team will contribute with the innovative fibre-based electronic components and integration strategies developed by SWIFT and WEAVeING. This will provide a new set of tools to validate the scalability and suitability for manufacturing of electronic-textiles in collaboration with the team at the Manchester Metropolitan Univesity. We will co-create electronic textile circuits by integration of our electronic fibre components (contucting, photodetector, colour changing and thermal fibres) which will be integrated via the design patterns identified in our research to create a motion sensor patch, a textile touch-pad and textile display. These will then be integrated to create a textile system that sensed, received inputs and shows outputs. Antenna designs will also be attempted for external connection and data sharing. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The Fashion Institute at the Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) offers a boad range of facilities to test the manufacturing viability of the fibre-based technology and the e-textile design rules developed by WEAVeING. In particular the team lead by Dr Barbara Shepherd offers has extensive expertise in textile manufacturing for commercial and specialised clothing. More recently they have lead the Fashion Institute response to covid by designing and developing personal protective equipment for NHS staff. They have offered access to their manufacturing testing facility in Manchester to validate the design rules and smart fibre integration strategies and verify the resproducivility and scalability of our approach. The access encompasses use of weaving and knitting facilities at the institute as well as characterisation techniques for flexibility and mechanical performance of the resulting textiles. A design strategy advise will also be provided by the MMU staff. Their in-kind contribution has been estimated to be valued at around £15,000. |
| Impact | The collaboration has recently started and due to the current pandemic current outputs are not yet finalised. However more defined outputs will be deteiled as the project evolves. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Title | LAYERED MATERIALS AND METHODS FOR THEIR PROCESSING |
| Description | A method for producing nanoplates derived from a layered material, includes the steps: (a) mixing particles of said layered material with a carrier liquid to form a dispersion of said particles in said carrier liquid; (b) pressurizing the dispersion to a pressure of at least 10 kpsi; and (c) forcing the dispersion along a microfluidic channel under said pressure, to apply a shear rate of at least 105 s-1 to said particles in the dispersion. Exfoliation of nanoplates from said particles is thereby caused. The nanoplates may be graphene nanoplates, for example. Steps (b) and (c) may be repeated for a number of cycles in order to promote exfoliation. The method may be carried out using a microfluidizer. |
| IP Reference | WO2017060497 |
| Protection | Patent application published |
| Year Protection Granted | 2017 |
| Licensed | No |
| Impact | Enables reproducible and robust large scale manufacturing of composites devices with inks of graphene and 2D materials. Fibres based devices have a very large aspect ratio and this requires a large quantity of functional inks to be coated layer-by-layer on the fibre. With our techniques long wet-spun fibres can be continuously manufactured in a reproducible way, with a high yield. This patent is now licenced to Cambridge Graphene Ltd. |
| Description | E-textile 2020 webinar on "Sustainable fibres" - EPSRC E-Textiles Network |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | This webinar was organised in collaboration with the EPSRC E-textiles Network as a replacement of a workshop and networking event planned to disseminate the results of SWIFT and WEAVeING projects. The webinar was hosted by the E-textiles netwoks and was adversited to the whole network community as well as to all the interested industrial and academic stake holders. A new manufacturing project proposal is being put together with relevant academic and industrial partners as a result of this webinar. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://e-textiles-network.com/e-textiles-network-webinar-fibre-based-electronics-for-sustainable-e-... |
| Description | Invited talk at Grapchina 2020 Shanghai, China - online event for overseas participants |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Invited talk at conference |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Masterclass and tutorial on "Wearable electronics and e-textiles" at IEEE-FLEPS 2020 conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | This activity was intended to provide industry and relevant businesses with the fundamentals and updates on the rapidly emerging field of wearable electronics, with a particular focus on e-textiles. The one-hour masterclass covered first the basics of wearable electronics and e-textiles showing the advantages and open questions for this technology. Secondly, a more tecnical part introduced the state-of-the art of materials and processes to manufacture e-textiles and the range of applications. The activity also hosted a range of demonstrators showcasing applications in the Healthcare, welbeing and sensing sectors. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://2020.ieee-fleps.org/general/tutorials |
| Description | News article by the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining on Textile batteries for wearable devices |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | The Intitute of Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining selecter our research work on Textile Wearable Batteries for a news article. This news article in well known to have a very broad audience and has resulted in an extraordinary vehicle for the dissemination of SWIFTS results. The article sparked interest in several industrial and academic sectors resulting in various initiatives involving my groups. For example I was invited to seat on the steering committee of the EPSRC E-Textile network. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.iom3.org/materials-world-magazine/news/2019/jul/01/textile-batteries-wearable-devices |
| Description | Outreach activity at Cambridge Science Centre |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Dr Torrisi and Mr Tian Carey (supervised by Dr Torrisi) have been invited to join the Cambridge Science Centre in an outreach event which had the purpose to disseminate knowledge and science of nanotechnology and future electronics to school pupils and families. This gave the team the opportunity to engage with joung students and families and present the work done within SWFT and explain the benefist and the expectations of this technology. We presented the demonstrators of conducting fibres and smart touch and motion sentor fabric, which grasped the attention of the pupils and their families. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://www.cambridgesciencecentre.org/graphene |
| Description | Symposium and Masterclass at IDTechEx USA 2019 Santa Clara, CA on Electronic Textiles |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | I gave a masterclass of 60 min about SWIFT resuslts and the potential application of the resulting technology in electronic textiles to a large audience of Business, industry and academic attendees. The audience was very engaging and interested in the work. After the presentation various industry playes approached me leading to interesting discussions and technology transfer partnerships such as the one already active with Metier Ltd and Klopman SpA. I was also the organised of an entire symposium about Electronic Textiles at IDTechEx USA 2019. This gave the opportunity to raise awareness in this field to the audience and cross-fertilise academic and industrial environments with large intereste in translational technology projects. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.idtechex.com/usa2019/show/en/speakers |
| Description | Talk at London Centre for Nanotechnology |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Talk at the London Centre for Nanotechnology. About 30 pupils attended the event from various schools in London |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Technology showcase at Imperial Techforesight 2020 - Session on Malleable Matter - A new era of wearables: Embedding advanced technology into our lives. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | The event is a presentation of technologies developed in academia that have a high potential for industrial uptake. More than 100 industries participated to the event and this sparked questions after the presentation as well as lead to discussions afterwards. One company attending the event, is now discussing the option to engage in an industrially funded project to apply the manufacturing strategies developed by SWIFT and WEAVeING into future products in functional technical textiles for healthcare application. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://imperialtechforesight.com/tf2040/malleable-matter/ |