Role of carbon nano tubes in textile applications

Carbon nanotube (CNT) fibre has high mechanical strength, light weight, high conductivity and so on mechanical properties.

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are integrated into textiles for applications like smart clothing, protective gear, and medical textiles by imparting properties such as electrical conductivity, antimicrobial activity, flame resistance, and water repellency. They can be applied as a coating on fabrics, woven into fibres or yarns, or used to create nonwoven sheets that are then incorporated into finished products. 

Key applications

• Conductive textiles: CNTs make fabrics electrically conductive, enabling their use in wearable electronics, sensors for health monitoring, and energy-harvesting systems.
• Antimicrobial textiles: CNT-coated fabrics can be used in healthcare settings, such as medical scrubs and bedding, to prevent bacterial and viral growth.
• Flame-resistant textiles: The thermal properties of CNTs can be used to enhance the fire resistance of fabrics for protective clothing like firefighter uniforms.
• Water and stain-repellent textiles: CNTs can make textiles superhydrophobic, causing water and oil stains to bead up and roll off, which is beneficial for sportswear and outdoor gear.
• Structural and composite materials: CNT fabrics can be used to create high-strength, lightweight composite materials for aerospace, defense, and automotive industries.
• Filters: Their high surface area and chemical stability make them suitable for use in air and water filtration systems.
• EMI shielding: Fabrics can be treated with CNTs to provide effective electromagnetic interference shielding. 

Integration methods

• Coating: CNTs can be applied as a coating through methods like spray-coating, dipping, or exhaustion, as seen with permanent stain-resistant finishes.
• Fibre and yarn production: CNTs can be spun into continuous fibres or yarns through methods such as wet spinning or aerogel spinning. These yarns can then be woven into a fabric.
• Nonwoven sheets: CNTs can be manufactured into nonwoven sheets that act as a fabric material itself, which can be further processed and coated to reduce fibre shedding. 

Carbon nanotubes fibre in textiles
Carbon nanotubes has a wide area of application in textiles for its extra-ordinary properties. Medicine, nano-technology, electronics, construction, polymer and textile are the main field of application. It may be applicable in energy storage device, actuators, nanoprobes, composites materials, hydrogen storage, electronic device, catalysis and sensor. In recent study, carbon nanotubes are possible to produce update version of the smart textiles and fabrics.

Conductive textiles
Conductivity is an important property for a material. Graphene, carbon black, and carbon nanotubes can have a wide range of conductivities. Since CNT is one of the allotropes, that’s why it can easily work as a conductor. The conductivity level of a material totally depends on the purity of the carbon compounds. In recent studies, several methods had been invented to produce CNT fibres and smart textiles from CNTs.

Wearable sensors: In modern science and health technology, Medical science invented too many sensors to monitor health conditions of men. In the developed countries, they used to test their health regularly. Scientist thought, what if they use light weight wearable sensors to monitor human body live and send alarm if any damage. Soft robotics, human motion detection, rehabilitation and health monitoring by connecting CNT fibre-based sensors with biological tissues. Foroughi developed knitted MWCNT sheet on spandex which stability up to 1000 cycles and up to 900% stretchability. Ryu developed a wearable and highly stretchable human motion detector device from dry-spun Carbon nanotube. This human motion detector sensor have repeatability up to 10,000 cycles and portable lightweight. The sensor couldcapture the movement of the wrist. Wearable â€‚clothes with sensors gather accurate EKG and hart rate and analysis with database.

Wearable thermal sensor: Having both metallic and nonmetallic properties in CNT fibre, it may be used for thermal sensor. Sometimes, CNT fibres works as semiconductor device depending on temperature increase-decrease. When temperature decrease CNT fibres behave as semiconductors. CNTs fibre mainly analysis body temperature with standard body database. To prevent any types of difficulties which responsible for temperature decrease or increase CNTs fibre based wearable thermal sensor play a vital role. With the help of CNT based smart textile clothes, we can easily save a human life with emergency alarm or signals.

Wearable biochemical sensor:The world environment is polluting regularly, and impurities enter the food. In recent studies, electrochemical sensors have been developed for food safety, optical sensors for heavy metal detection, and an effective virus detection device. Wearable biochemical sensors are used to monitor human body health conditions. Their role is to detect early stages of causing heart diseases, rapid detection of the human papilloma virus, ete. In cancer and drug discovery, fluorescent biosensors are used. In the defense, clinical sector, marine application, and plant biology sector, CNT fibres may be used.

How biochemical sensor work?

Biochemical sensor is used to translate biological signals into electrical signal. Biosensor with cloths collect regular biological data of body and covert into electrical signals. After comparing electrical signals with standard database biochemical sensors give different types of signals.

Ballistic armor from carbon nanotube fibres
Carbon nanotube (CNT) fibre have high mechanical strength, light weight, high conductivity and so on mechanical properties. Having extra ordinary mechanical properties CNT are used in ballistic armor. Ballistic armor is used to prevent the bullet from passing through the material entirely. In general, a bullet directs impact on a surface by putting a lot of kinetic energy into a very small package. There will be a strong force concentration where the bullet strikes. Bulletproof vests are used to direct the bullet’s kinetic energy into the overall body surface, which prevents high energy in small areas.

Conclusion
In modern world, the demands of E-Textile and smart-textile is increasing rapidly for it’s extraordinary properties. Smart textiles made of carbon nanotubes fibres help people in daily activities with extra convenience, regular heartbeat monitor, body temperature control, blood pressure control, virus bacteria, etc. In the future, the demand for carbon nanotubes fibre will increase greatly in the competition to meet the additional needs of people.

About the authors:

• S Karthikeyan is from the Department of Petrochemical Technology, SSM College of Engineering, Komarapalayam, Tamil Nadu

• Dr N Gokarneshan is theAcademic Consultant, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu

• KK Hema is from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, SSM College of Engineering, Komarapalayam, Tamil Nadu.