Today’s e-textiles require electric circuits and batteries that are brittle, bulky, often prevent maintenance of the textile and hinder customer acceptance. These rigid conductive elements can be made redundant due to the possibilities enabled by the design of novel yarns.

In the vision of the project, different photoresponsive molecules and nanoparticles embedded in these new yarns, can directly convert photons into heat, actuation, or triggering a colour change,

A major challenge is to keep many of the smart textile innovations at bay is that they were developed solely from technological perspectives, forgetting possible use in daily life, user attachment and aesthetics. These parameters are of pivotal importance in developing a sustainable use perspective where it is crucial to work with longevity, high use frequency and durability.

The interdisciplinary collaboration between chemical engineering and design is the foundation for our collaborative innovations and it is crucial in transferring the research into practice to have a major societal impact.