Yarn with nanotech materials can be mixed together with regular yarn as it is fabricated, Baughman says. “Clothing woven from these yarns can then exploit these new properties for such purposes as sensing, energy harvesting and energy storage.”
These nanotech yarns are multi-functional, he says.
“Ordinary fibers for textiles are functional,” he says. “They provide for the comfort and classical needs of textiles so no one is walking around naked. Now if you are going to have more broadly useful textiles—in the sense of being multi-functional—you need multi-functional yarns that can be woven into a textile.”
Baughman explains the capabilities of these new textiles.
“For example, in the area of energy harvesting, we would like to have textiles that harvest solar energy and convert it to electrical energy,” he says. “Or textiles that can use the small temperature difference between the body and the outside world to power wireless sensors.”
Currently, the cost of producing some of these items is too expensive to be practical on a large scale.
“The cost of producing clothing containing solely nanofiber yarns is presently prohibitive,” Baughman says. “However, production costs will decrease as yarn production is up-scaled, and even a small amount of these special yarns can now be sewn into clothing to provide useful performance.”