The smart clothing company Bonbouton, New York, NY/USA, has formed a collaboration with Liquid X Printed Metals Inc., Pittsburgh, PA/USA, to build temperature and pressure sensors directly on textiles using additive manufacturing techniques.
Through its inkjet-printable graphene technology licensed from the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ/USA, Bonbouton is developing thin and mechanically flexible sensors for wearable physiology monitoring. This attains wearable personal health options that are unobtrusive, comfortable and attractive, while still enabling the collection of accurate, precise and useful data.
Liquid X will use its proprietary particle-free inks to inkjet print interconnects directly on textiles. These interconnects carry signals from a graphene-sensing layer back to device hardware, where the data can be analyzed. Liquid X's ability to metalize textile fibers reduces steps in the manufacturing process of electronically integrated textiles and employs a low-cost, scalable manufacturing method widely utilized in the textile industry.
The 2 companies expect to have prototype models developed and tested for industry by the 2019 Flex trade fair which takes place from February 18-21, 2019 in Monterey, CA/USA.