Graphene-based wearable e-textiles move closer to commercial production

The market for e-textile clothing is forecasted to reach $5 billion by 2027, according to the market research firm IDTechEX. And while graphene is expected to be one of the most prominent materials in wearable e-textiles, currently there is no good way to manufacture graphene-based e-textiles on an industrial scale.

To address this problem, a team of researchers led by Professor Kostya S. Novoselov at The University ofManchesterhave developed a scalable process to manufacture graphene-based wearable e-textiles on an industrial scale. As they write in their paper published in a recent issue of ACS Nano, the method could allow graphene e-textiles to be manufactured at commercial production rates of 150 meters per minute.

"To be able to produce graphene-based wearable e-textiles in scalable quantity at very high speed is a significant breakthrough for the rapidly growing wearables market," first author Nazmul Karim at The University of Manchester told Phys.org. "Our simple and cost-effective way of producing multifunctional graphene textiles could easily be scaled up for many real-life applications, such as sportswear, military gear, and medical clothing."