What are conductive fabrics called?

What is Conductive Fabric?

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Conductive fabrics, also called metallized fabric or smart fabric, utilize conductive metals such as nickel, gold, carbon, stainless steel, or titanium. Typical foundational materials include cotton, wool, polyester, or nylon. There are two categories of conductive fabrics. The first is intrinsically conductive fibers and conductive polymers. The second is non-conductive or less conductive substrates. These are either coated or embedded with the electrically conductive element. Other features include corrosion resistance and the need for fewer seams. Conductive fabrics are growing in popularity, particularly in the telecom, medical, and wearable electronics industries. Many have the NFPA Class A Flame rating.

At a basic level, conductive fabrics dissipate static energy and help mitigate unwanted electromagnetic interference. Other attributes are thermal regulation and their anti-allergy and anti-bacterial properties. The conductive properties help facilitate the integration of &#;soft networks&#; into fabrics, thus making them smart fabrics. Unlike most technical textiles, smart textiles are not passive in their function: They can sense and respond to stimuli such as touch, temperature, or heartbeat. The fabric itself is often used as a &#;switch&#; in an electronic circuit to perform a function for another external electronic device. For a &#;switch&#; to happen, a connection between two conductive fabrics or yarns must occur.

How does it work?

Flexible, low weight, and versatile, conductive fibers are used in products ranging from metal mesh, aerospace textiles, taser or stun gun vests, conductive threads or yarns, and fabric sheets used for thermal heating. They also can be used to conduct electricity in small spaces, for static dissipation, electromagnetic interference shielding, signal and power transfer in low resistance versions, and in heating elements in higher resistance versions. An example is medical equipment such as electrodes. Conductive fibers can be woven, knit, sewn, cut, or braided. This is a benefit for manufacturers who can use conductive fibers to take advantage of their features.

What are Common Uses?

Current applications of conductive fabrics are found in a variety of products. Examples are medical equipment, wearable medical devices, notebook computers, plasma display panels, printers, telecommunications enclosure cabinets, and others. Intelligent textiles can incorporate antennas, global positioning systems (GPS), mobile phones and flexible display panels, without compromising the inherent characteristics of the fabric.

Fabric which can conduct electricity

A conductive textile is a fabric which can conduct electricity. Conductive textiles known as lamé are made with guipé thread or yarn that is conductive because it is composed of metallic fibers wrapped around a non-metallic core or has a metallic coating. A different way of achieving conductivity is to weave metallic strands into the textile.

Some historic fabrics use yarns of solid metals, most commonly gold. Alternatively, novel materials such as nanomaterials (including graphene, and carbon nanotubes) or conducting polymers may also be used as the conducting materials.[1] There is also an interest in semiconducting textiles, made by impregnating normal textiles with carbon- or metal-based powders.[2]

Conductive fibers consist of a non-conductive or less conductive substrate, which is then either coated or embedded with electrically conductive elements, often carbon, nickel, copper, gold, silver, titanium or PEDOT. Metals may be deposited chemically with autocatalytic chemistry,[3] printed with conductive nanoparticle inks,[4] or applied with physical vapor deposition methods.[5] Substrates typically include cotton, polyester, nylon, and stainless steel to high performance fibers such as aramids and PBO. Straddling the worlds of textiles and wires, conductive fibers are sold either by weight or length, and measured in denier or AWG.

Because of the rapid growth in the kinds of conductive fibers and the uses of these fibers, a trade association&#;the Conductive Fiber Manufacturers Council[6]&#;was formed to increase awareness, utilization, and possibly standardize terminology.

Applications

Uses for conductive fibers and textiles may include static dissipation, EMI shielding,[7] signal and power transfer in low resistance versions, and as a heating element in higher resistance versions. Their benefits over solid or stranded metal wires come from conductive fibers' flexibility and ability to use them in existing textile and wire machinery (weaving, knitting, braiding, etc.).

The sport of fencing employs lamés, jackets made of conductive textiles, to detect hits in competitions.

One major use is by Micro Coax's ARACON fiber built on a KEVLAR base, and used for shielding cabling in air- and spacecraft and other speciality purposes where light weight, high strength, and high-frequency shielding is imperative. Another more recent use is in the production of 'stun gun' or Taser-proof clothing, where the conductive textile forms a flexible Faraday cage in a layer of the garment. Conductive fabric can also be used to make electrodes for EEG and other medical applications;[8] such electrodes were used in a commercially available sleep-monitoring device made by former company Zeo, Inc. Highly conductive stainless steel fiber is available.[9]

See also

References

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