[Originally posted on LinkedIn on 3rd October 2025]
Smart textiles incorporate electronic devices into a fabric, but if you owned a smart t-shirt how would you care for it?
Throw it in the wash?
Remove wrinkles by ironing?
Fold it away in the cupboard?
Creating an electronic fabric that can withstand washing, ironing and folding without damaging the device is a challenge. However, a new paper in Nature Communications shows that it is possible to make smart cotton clothing that maintains performance after washing, ironing and bending.
The authors prepared the textile using an inkjet printer, adding carbon nanotubes to form a conductive network and silver nanoparticles as a pressure sensor to monitor physical activity. Preparing the fabric into a sock, the clothing was found to be stable after:
- 10 washes
- 5 rounds of ironing
- 1000 bending cycles
- 5 months of storage
Why does this matter?
Wearable devices offer the potential to non-invasively monitor health and disease. However, to become viable for real-world applications, smart fabrics need to be comfortable and maintainable. Adding the capacity for washing, ironing and bending to a smart cotton is an important step towards practical future electronic textiles.
Read the full paper here: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-63636-3 from Springer Nature
Kyubin Bae, Bowoong Heo, Kyuhyun Hwang, Eunhwan Jo, Yunsung Kang, Soonjae Pyo and Jongbaeg Kim, Washable heat-resistant and inkjet-printed devices on cotton fabric for wearable applications, Nat. Commun., 2025, 16, 8615