MicroNanoStructured fiber systems: the new wardrobe for the roughest work

Filed in archive Materials on February 14, 2006

If you thought the reversible sportcoat was spiffy, just wait until nanotechnology gets hold of your wardrobe. Researchers have plans to create clothing that will check your vital signs, monitor your environment, administer medicines, and provide always-on computation and communication with every other nano-wearing being on the planet.

And funding agencies are putting hundreds of millions of dollars behind their efforts.

The newly formed European Integrated Project ProeTEX, for example, is busy building Protection e-Textiles, which they describe as "MicroNanoStructured fibre systems for Emergency-Disaster Wear". The project, launched in Luzern Switzerland this month with funding of €12 million, involves 23 European partners.

The wearable systems developed by ProeTEX will monitor the health of the user through vital signs, biochemical parameters, activity and posture, and generate and store their own power. They will measure potential environmental hazards, such as adverse temperatures, and levels of toxic gases. They'll also offer improved visibility, and continuously communicate data to the rescue operation control centre.

Project coordinator Professor Annalisa Bonfiglio, from the University of Cagliari, says she hopes the project will have other spin-off technology developments, like textile-based micro-nano technologies.

"We are now aiming to develop directly functionalized fibers," says Bonfiglio, "systems that can be assembled directly as a textile material. In this way the textile itself becomes an active component, and can be tailored not only according to the physical shape but also to the electronic function."

The US Army has been quick to pick up on the military potential of nanomaterials and initiated the $50 million Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at MIT in 2002. The Institute is working to develop protective lightweight molecular materials to equip US soldiers with uniforms and gear that help protect them, shield them, and heal them in the field. They envision military uniforms that can:

• Change colors on command to camouflage in changing environments-even manipulate light to make soldiers invisible in the field.
• Change a shirtsleeve into a splint or a pant leg into a rigid cast in the field if a soldier is injured.
• Possess built-in sensors of each soldier's physical condition and location in the battlefield so command posts can monitor soldiers from a distance.
• Weave radio communications materials directly into the uniform's fabric-providing soldiers flexibility and lighter loads.
• Automatically administer medicines and transmit vital signs to distant medics-who could then potentially perform medical triage on soldiers in the field.
• Provide impact protection materials and systems including ballistic and shrapnel.
• Provide chemical and biological protection materials and systems.

Institute researchers are confident that nanotechnology-based uniforms may also protect law enforcement officers, firefighters, and other emergency responders, integrating sensors, connections, transmission systems and power management into emergency disaster personnel smart garments. They will soon address a wider range of other markets from extreme sports, through healthcare to building workers.

They also sponsor the Soldier Design Competition. On March 1, nine finalist teams will present their ideas. (photo fujita)