The process of making adaptive and responsive wearables on the scale of the body hasoften been a process where designers use off-the-shelf parts or hand-crafted electronics to fabricategarments. However, recent research has shown the importance of emergence in the process of making.Second Skins is a multistakeholder exploration into the creation of those garments where the designersand engineers work together throughout the design process so that opportunities and challengesemerge with all stakeholders present in the process. This research serves as a case study into thecreation of adaptive caring garments for sustainable wardrobes from a multistakeholder designteam. The team created a garment that can customize the colors, patterns, structures, and otherproperties dynamically. A reflection on the multi-stakeholder process unpacks the process to explorethe challenges and opportunities in adaptable e-textiles.
In this paper, we conceptualize circular economy ecosystem emergence as the intersection of extant innovation, entrepreneurial, and industrial ecosystems. From our rich qualitative data in the circular textiles and apparel industry, we identify drivers behind emergence and uncover the pivotal role ecosystem orchestrators play in governing the interdependencies between actors and activities across the different intersecting ecosystems. From our findings, we theorize circular economy ecosystem emergence as a transitional phase or “real utopia” that, with purposeful orchestration, can potentially become a future desired state. In doing so, we make novel contributions to the literature on economic ecosystems, circular economy, and prospective theorizing, a nascent future-oriented perspective on theory building. Our research offers valuable insights for practitioners and policymakers aiming to accelerate circular economy transformation.
Research through design allows creating a dialogue with the material. It uses making andreflection on action as a generator of knowledge. Our aim is to explore the opportunities and challenges of smart textiles. The Fablab is our set up, a place that allows us to combine the hackingscientific-, and design community. It stimulates collaboration and the knowledge exchange needed for the development of smart textile systems. A collaborative prototyping workshop for medical products combined two worlds. The textile world in Saxion aims at incorporating conductive materials into textile structures and functional- / 3D printing to create systems for applications such as flexible heating systems and wearable technology. We combined this with the world of Industrial Design at TU/e, focused on the design of intelligent products, systems and services by the research through design approach. The collaboration between these different disciplines accelerated the process by reducing the resistance to the new and skipped the frustration on failure. Article from the Saxion Research Centre for Design and Technology published in the book 'Smart and Interactive Textile ' (pages 112-117), for the 4th International Conference Smart Materials, Structures and Systems, Montecatini Terme, Tuscany, Italy, 10th-14th June 2012.
MULTIFILE
The textile and clothing sector belongs to the world’s biggest economic activities. Producing textiles is highly energy-, water- and chemical-intensive and consequently the textile industry has a strong impact on environment and is regarded as the second greatest polluter of clean water. The European textile industry has taken significant steps taken in developing sustainable manufacturing processes and materials for example in water treatment and the development of biobased and recycled fibres. However, the large amount of harmful and toxic chemicals necessary, especially the synthetic colourants, i.e. the pigments and dyes used to colour the textile fibres and fabrics remains a serious concern. The limited range of alternative natural colourants that is available often fail the desired intensity and light stability and also are not provided at the affordable cost . The industrial partners and the branch organisations Modint and Contactgroep Textiel are actively searching for sustainable alternatives and have approached Avans to assist in the development of the colourants which led to the project Beauti-Fully Biobased Fibres project proposal. The objective of the Beauti-Fully Biobased Fibres project is to develop sustainable, renewable colourants with improved light fastness and colour intensity for colouration of (biobased) man-made textile fibres Avans University of Applied Science, Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, Wageningen University & Research, Maastricht University and representatives from the textile industry will actively collaborate in the project. Specific approaches have been identified which build on knowledge developed by the knowledge partners in earlier projects. These will now be used for designing sustainable, renewable colourants with the improved quality aspects of light fastness and intensity as required in the textile industry. The selected approaches include refining natural extracts, encapsulation and novel chemical modification of nano-particle surfaces with chromophores.
Phosphorus is an essential element for life, whether in the agricultural sector or in the chemical industry to make products such as flame retardants and batteries. Almost all the phosphorus we use are mined from phosphate rocks. Since Europe scarcely has any mine, we therefore depend on imported phosphate, which poses a risk of supply. To that effect, Europe has listed phosphate as one of its main critical raw materials. This creates a need for the search for alternative sources of phosphate such as wastewater, since most of the phosphate we use end up in our wastewater. Additionally, the direct discharge of wastewater with high concentration of phosphorus (typically > 50 ppb phosphorus) creates a range of environmental problems such as eutrophication . In this context, the Dutch start-up company, SusPhos, created a process to produce biobased flame retardants using phosphorus recovered from municipal wastewater. Flame retardants are often used in textiles, furniture, electronics, construction materials, to mention a few. They are important for safety reasons since they can help prevent or spread fires. Currently, almost all the phosphate flame retardants in the market are obtained from phosphate rocks, but SusPhos is changing this paradigm by being the first company to produce phosphate flame retardants from waste. The process developed by SusPhos to upcycle phosphate-rich streams to high-quality flame retardant can be considered to be in the TRL 5. The company seeks to move further to a TRL 7 via building and operating a demo-scale plant in 2021/2022. BioFlame proposes a collaboration between a SME (SusPhos), a ZZP (Willem Schipper Consultancy) and HBO institute group (Water Technology, NHL Stenden) to expand the available expertise and generate the necessary infrastructure to tackle this transition challenge.
In the past, textile material was used to add value to buildings in various applications, as well as improving building performance in terms or in terms of building and acoustics properties, and increasing the esthetic value.Textiles are light in weight, easy to shape, strong, insulating, moisture-regulating and can be provided with extra functions. Particularly in areas with an earthquake risk, as well as cases with a temporary demand for flexible shelters, textiles and primary use.
