New Eco-Friendly Wearable E-Textile to Eradicate Wastes Generation and Healthcare Development
The e-textile, designed by researchers from University of Southampton and UWE Bristol, cut down on waste in the environment but health care monitoring was also designed. Known as SWEET, for Smart, Wearable and Eco-friendly Electronic Textiles, the fabric is set to be biodegradable and will allow the physiological body data such as heart rate, besides its body temperature.
On the other hand, SWEET is biodegradable. Most of these e-textiles are made of a material called silver. It takes thousands of years for silver to break down in landfills and cannot be recycled. So, this new e-textile might just be the solution to the rising electronic waste, mainly for the fashion and healthcare industries, which increasingly use these materials to make their clothing or equipment look attractive and useful.
Key Features of SWEET
SWEET is known for the sustainable materials it uses to make its product along with manufacturing. The raw material that the fabric is made from is Tencel, which is a biodegradable material found from renewable resources. In other words, once broken down in the environment, there will be an end to the waste that creates landfills and pollution in large. The electronic parts of the electronic component are attached to the fabric as sensors. Such parts are obtained by coating with graphene and the polymer PEDOT: PSS. The researchers print the cloth using inkjet technology, ensuring no waste of material and thus environmental friendliness to the production method of e-textiles.
Besides the sustainability of SWEET, it has practical application in a medical setting. These sensors can record such vital signs as pulse and body temperature that are considered basic signs for a condition to be found early. In integrating these sensors within one’s clothing for use during daily activity, this patient’s health monitoring is made simple without the accompaniment of a bulking and invasive piece of medical equipment on the patient’s person.
There is the aspect of e-textiles disposal. Most of the present traditional e-textiles depend on metals such as silver. Silver has multiple applications and must, therefore, remain in the environment for quite a long period since they don’t degrade. Materials that are expected to generate electronic wastes end up in landfills where they might soil both the soil and water source. Valuable resources become hard to recover with the challenging and expensive method of recycling.
Biodegradable materials and the inkjet-printing technique make it easier to recycle and dispose of once it has reached the end of its life cycle. The fact that the fabric breaks down within four months when buried in the soil shows that it has the potential to reduce long-term environmental impact.
Application and Testing of SWEET
Volunteers wearing attached fabric on the gloves tested the feasibility of its attachment. By attaching the fabric, the researcher concluded that even at heart rate and temperature recording, SWEET has achieved a wearability standard equivalent to that of industry-level wearable health-monitoring devices. This can be used in medical or fitness application where monitoring of vital signs is very important.
SWEET was put in soil to check its decomposability. This composite has degraded after four months of decomposition. This property is one of the significant advantages associated with this new textile fabric that is minimising problems which often result from disposal or environment due to e-textiles, and minimizes e-textile’s impact on environment.
Reducing E-Textile’s Impact on the Environment
As depicted by the life cycle analysis, SWEET carries an incredibly smaller footprint on the environment compared to traditional e-textiles. With materials used here consisting of graphene and PEDOT: PSS-based, carrying almost negligible impact, it works out as an environmentally friendly way of pursuing industries’ attempts at reducing the ecological footprint they leave behind. Therefore, it will appeal to the healthcare and fashion industries that are increasingly incorporating technology into their products but want to minimize ecological damage.
Conclusion
SWEET is such an extremely good point in the creation of eco-friendly e-textiles. It does not only make e-textiles less harmful to the environment, but it is also a wearable technology for monitoring health. It is a novel innovative fabric, which may even open avenues that allow more ecological and efficient wearables. The future of health and fashion indeed seems promising in this regard because of its biodegradable characteristic.
As demand increases for wearable technologies, sustainability in the environment automatically becomes a demand. SWEET offers a model with which innovation fulfills both of their aims: wearable technology is useful for people but eco-friendly and long-term sustainable, too.
Source: University of Southampton