When graphene is combined with fabric, will it set off a new wave of smart clothing?

The pace of technology is getting faster and faster, and people's desire for new materials is becoming more and more urgent. It's not hard to understand that with more technology products appearing in our lives, the limitations of traditional materials have become more prominent, and when they can't solve new demands, graphene has emerged.

In many people's eyes, graphene materials have always been very mysterious. Although many people know about it because of the discovery of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics, graphene has not been used in large quantities in our lives for various reasons. . For this reason, Chen Lijun, the founder of Aika Aijia Technology, chose a different path and embarked on the road of combining graphene and clothing.

From new materials to new fabrics

The development of any new material is not always smooth, as is graphene.

In 2010, the physicist Andrei Heim and the Konstantin Novoselov of the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom succeeded in separating graphene from graphite in the experiment, confirming that it can exist alone and jointly acquire Nobel. Physics award. As a result, graphene has begun to enter the eyes of researchers around the world.

As the world's thinnest but hardest nanomaterial, graphene has many properties: it is harder than diamonds, 100 times stronger than steel; almost completely transparent, only absorbing 2.3% of light; thermal conductivity up to 5300W/m·K It is 10 times larger than copper and 25 times larger than aluminum. Its electron mobility is higher than that of carbon nanotubes and silicon crystals, and its resistivity is lower than that of copper or silver. The various features are superimposed to give this material a gorgeous aura.

These features alone can change a single industry, and when all the outstanding features are combined, the desire for graphene is not urgent. However, the problem is that the "looking beautiful" graphene material is quite difficult to develop in practice. The difficulty in preparing graphene materials is an industry problem, so it is in the experimental stage for a long time, and it is difficult to find more practical methods.

For this reason, Aika Aijia Technology chose a different route. On the one hand, it was established at the beginning of the market by cutting into the less competitive apparel industry and opening up the market with unique heating characteristics. On the other hand, in recent years, from the expansion of apparel to wearable devices, it has been chosen to work with the University of Manchester to further reduce the cost of preparation. On the other hand, under the two-pronged approach, Aika Aijia Technology has unearthed a vast blue sky of graphene wearables.

Chen Lijun told Geek Park that the choice of using graphene in the wearable field is very important because of the good thermal conductivity and electrical conductivity of graphene. Since the establishment of the company in 2013, Aika Aijia Technology has developed a variety of graphene wearable products such as underwear, knee pads, waist protectors, shoulder pads, down jackets, eye masks, etc., all of which use graphene materials. Due to the ultra-high thermal conductivity and up to 99% electrothermal conversion efficiency, 1 gram of graphene can be used on 2,630 square meters of fabric, so that the cost is reduced.

It seems easy to combine with fabrics, and the development process is extremely difficult. Chen Lijun told us that to make a new material into a fabric, it has new capabilities, and its fabric properties can not be ignored. It must be ensured that the new material has good air permeability, sturdiness, bendability, washability, etc. A variety of attributes that challenge the team.

In order to be able to develop this material, Chen Lijun and his team made breakthroughs in graphene preparation technology in four years and developed the "aqueous 3D composite graphene" technology. Using water as the main raw material, the graphene, carbon nanotubes and nano-carbon black are stably monodispersed in the resin through the dispersant, and the three-dimensional composite structure is constructed, which solves the problem that the carbon nanomaterial is easy to agglomerate and disperse in the aqueous resin. Thus, a stable graphene aqueous electrothermal ink is prepared.

The new graphene fabric material, named AIFH, has been patented and is the only material that exists in the form of textiles with excellent heat generation and energy conversion in colleges and universities. In the new material, the patented technology of Hinave (Haniwei) can be combined with the light wave conversion enhancement technology to release light waves with wide spectrum and high energy. The two combine with each other to have a richer imagination on wearable devices.

Graphene with Wearable: Closer to Our Future

Where is the meaning of wearable when using graphene on clothes?

Chen Lijun thought about this for a long time. After years of research and development, he and the team explored a unique road: combining the development path of smart products, using data to make graphene wearable devices a part of human health materials, not just It is a hot clothes.

Chen Lijun told Geek Park that in the years since the establishment of Aika Aijia Technology, from the protective gear to the clothing to the new graphene infrared heating eye mask released in December this year, it is not only the thermal conductivity of graphene, but also good electrical conductivity. Sexuality enables materials to control temperature through connected devices and intelligently read data. “This is a new scenario of graphene + big data + intelligence .” He believes this can provide a new solution for enterprise transformation for apparel and wearables.

Take the latest hot eye mask as an example, not only can it be heated quickly, but also can control the temperature at the temperature suitable for the human eye. Users can raise or lower the temperature through the controller, and the data is further explored, which will make the product more user-friendly and ultimately form a smart wearable product with excellent experience.

In the past, many companies studied the graphene material, the scene was very vertical, focused on one aspect, but ignored the deeper value. In Chen Lijun's view, this is exactly the way the traditional industry needs Aika Aijia Technology to empower.

At the communication meeting, he said that through this new solution, Aika Aijia Technology has cooperated with more than 50 outstanding clothing companies such as Valentino, Pathfinder and Erdos to provide design, research and development, technical support, A comprehensive service of complete systems such as data analysis. This has enabled the traditional apparel industry to move toward smarter and more data-driven capabilities.

The use of coal has pushed mankind into the steam era. The use of silicon crystals has sent mankind to the era of rapid information. In the history of mankind, the emergence of many new materials has almost changed the trajectory of civilization. From this perspective, despite Chen Lijun And his Aika love home technology is long, but the wearable and apparel industry is starting to look forward to.