Electronic Cotton or Conductive cotton: scientists fashioning electronic future for cotton fiber

 Researchers in the US, Italy and France have invented transistors made from cotton fibers, producing “electronic cotton! They’re hoping that their invention will help us understand how we move and interact with our environment. For example, the electric cotton could detect how fast we’re walking across carpet or how we’re affected by our environment (i.e. t-shirts that measure pollutants in the atmosphere). Their main goal is to create “a seamless interface between electronics and textiles.”

The cellulose that makes up cotton already provides natural installation, which makes the fiber conductive, making it the perfect fabric to create an electrical stream through. The researches have already been doing tests where they treat the cotton with a thin layer of conductive polymer (PEDOT). By adding the polymer the cotton becomes a thousand times more conductive than plain cotton, and keeps the mechanical properties untouched.

One of the first tests the researchers did was tie a knotted end of treated cotton to a battery and the other to a LED, and poof! they created an electrical current. Unfortunately the electrons in the cotton fibers aren’t as strong as silicon circuits so we won’t be seeing MP3 clothing anytime soon. Nor will you ever have to worry about feeling the electric charge!

So far this resembles a solution in search of a problem.  One wonders just how such a product would survive the normal hostile operating conditions imposed by humanity.  We are rough on our fabrics because we use them as protection in the first place.  Do you recall the last time you bumped into the door or chair or the wall etc.?  Clothing is why we are not covered with bruises and abrasions to begin with.

Otherwise we remain uninspired and wait to be impressed with this effort.  Maybe it will lead to a thin skin that covers the whole and at least provides temperature control.  What I really would like to see is an organic layer capable of consuming our waste materials in their entirety. Recall our skin a major waste removal organ.  That alone would be important.

Inasmuch as all our waste once dehydrated is light, it is not quite the tall order it appears on first glance.

All this leads nicely to skin suits for operating in real hostile conditions such as Space or Mars.