DailyDirt: Almost Ready To Wear Textiles

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Science fiction has popularized a few clothing ideas that haven't quite become a reality. (For instance, fabrics made of a spider-silk-like fiber that are super tough but light.) Sometimes the laws of physics doesn't quite allow for magical fabrics that can make things invisible/impenetrable/etc. Real advanced fabric technologies are improving all the time, though, and making some pretty cool clothes -- even if they're not economically practical. Here are just a few examples.

• Body armor tough enough to withstand a knife could be 3D printed from a single strand of yarn. The yarn is bound together with a silicone material that gives the 3D structure some impact-resistant crumple volume. The prototypes don't look too comfy to wear, but presumably, more refined materials and designs could produce some useful and wearable body armor. [url]
• Lab-grown leather from bioengineered tissues (3D printed on demand, no less) could make "animal-friendly" clothing in the future. Lab-made skin (properly engineered) won't need to be processed to remove hair follicles and could be more environmentally green in some ways, but it might still be ethically questionable to grow certain kinds of skin. (eg. it puts the lotion in the basket..) [url]
• Many fire-resistant textiles have typically contained some nasty chemicals, but some specialty materials like CarbonX don't... (because it's made of partially-charred acrylic fibers). There's also Nomex, but neither of these specialty textiles is really suited for toddler pajamas (yet?). [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: 3d printing, biotech, carbonx, clothing, fabric, fire-resistant, leather, materials, nomex, textile