According to foreign media reports, Rice University researchers recently demonstrated a clothing with carbon nanotubes that can continuously monitor the wearer's heart. There's no need to wear an uncomfortable smartwatch or chest strap to monitor your heart if your comfortable clothing does a better job. That's the idea behind "smart clothing" developed by a Rice University lab that uses its conductive nanowires to weave functionality into regular clothing.
Matteo Pasquali, a chemical and biomolecular engineer at the school's Brown School of Engineering, reports in Nano Letters, a journal of the American Chemical Society, that it sewn nanotube fibers into sportswear to monitor heart rate and perform continuous electrocardiographic monitoring of the wearer. .
Tyrėjų teigimu, pluoštai yra laidūs kaip metalinės vielos, tačiau yra plaunami, patogūs ir daug mažiau linkę lūžti kūnui judant. Apskritai, jų patobulinti drabužiai geriau rinko duomenis nei standartiniai krūtinės{0}}dirželių monitoriai, kurie eksperimentų metu buvo matuojami lauke. Suderinus su komerciniais medicininiais elektrodų monitoriais, anglies nanovamzdelių drabužiai EKG veikė šiek tiek geriau.
"The garment had to fit snugly against the chest," said Rice graduate student Lauren Taylor, lead author of the study. "In future research, we will focus on using denser blocks of carbon nanowires so that there is more surface area to contact the skin."
Tyrėjai pabrėžia, kad nanovamzdelių pluoštai yra minkšti ir elastingi, o drabužius, kuriuose yra jų, galima skalbti mašinoje. Šiuos pluoštus galima siūti ant audinio kaip standartinį siūlą. Zigzago susiuvimo raštas leidžia audiniams ištempti jų nesulaužant.
The fibers not only provide a stable electrical contact with the wearer's skin, Taylor said, but also act as electrodes to connect electronic devices such as Bluetooth transmitters, relay data to smartphones, or connect to Holter monitors that can fit in the user's pocket. device.
Pasquali's lab introduced carbon nanotube fibers in 2013. Since then, fibers containing tens of billions of nanotubes each have been studied to repair bridges in damaged hearts, as electrical interfaces to the brain, for cochlear implants, as flexible antennas, and for automotive and aerospace applications. Their development is also part of the Rice-based Carbon Center, a multi-university research initiative led by Rice and launched in 2019.
Originalūs nanovamzdelių siūlai buvo maždaug 22 mikronų pločio, per ploni, kad galėtų juos apdoroti siuvimo mašina. Siunčiamam siūlui sukurti buvo naudojamas virvių gamintojas, iš esmės trys ryšuliai po septynias gijas, austi iki maždaug tokio pat dydžio kaip įprastas siūlas, sakė Taylor.
"We worked with a guy who sold a little machine designed to make ropes for model boats," says Taylor, who initially tried to weave the thread by hand with limited success. "He was able to make us a mid-scale device that could do that."
Ji sakė, kad zig{0}}zago raštas gali būti koreguojamas atsižvelgiant į sportinės aprangos ar kito audinio elastingumą. Taylor sakė, kad komanda dirba su daktaru Mehdi Razavi ir jo kolegomis iš Teksaso širdies instituto, siekdama išsiaiškinti, kaip maksimaliai padidinti kontaktą su oda.
Į audinį įausti pluoštai taip pat gali būti naudojami antenoms ar šviesos diodams įterpti, teigė mokslininkai. Nedideli pluošto geometrijos ir susijusios elektronikos pakeitimai galiausiai gali leisti drabužiams stebėti gyvybinius požymius, pastangas ar kvėpavimo dažnį.
Other potential uses could include human-machine interfaces in cars or soft robots, or as antennas, health monitors and bulletproof protection for military uniforms, Taylor noted. "We demonstrated with a collaborator a few years ago that carbon nanotube fibers dissipate energy better per unit weight than Kevlar fibers, and that's without some of our later progress in tensile strength," she said. "
"We're seeing this material play a role in more and more applications after 20 years of development in laboratories around the world," Pasquali said. "Carbon nanotubes are a natural building block for wearable devices due to their combination of electrical conductivity, good skin contact, biocompatibility and softness."
Nešiojamų drabužių rinka, nors ir palyginti nedidelė, galėtų būti įėjimo taškas naujos kartos tvarioms medžiagoms, kurios gali būti išgaunamos iš angliavandenilių tiesioginio skaidymo būdu, o šis procesas taip pat gamina švarų vandenilį, sakė jis. Šios medžiagos kūrimas yra anglies centro dėmesys.
"We are in the same situation as solar cells were decades ago," Pasquali said. "We need application leaders that can power scale-up of production and improve efficiency."
