Fiber Fun
Glow in the dark yarn has been available for a while now. Nightlights is one brand which is fairly conventional. It’s nylon. You expose it to light and it glows for several hours. The University of Manchester has apparently developed an electric yarn, Note, in particular that “Weaving or knitting the yarn in a particular manner, so that more yarn per unit area is achieved, improves the luminance of the EL yarn.”
This is pretty cool, from the point of view of a knitter, but thinking like a geek, I looked around for more ‘hi tech’ yarn. What I found out is that nano-fibers can be ‘electrospun’ to create yarns. More details about the properties of nano-yarn were presented last week at a Nanoelectric Materials Conference in Salt Lake City, but I’m having a hard time figuring out what that would mean in terms of industry, or for the knitter. How long would it take to knit a pair of socks with nano-yarn, anyway?
The UTD Nanotech Institute makes an intriguing mention of “a yarn that has been woven into a multifunctional electronic textile” made from carbon nanotube fibers. TMS Online ‘highlights’ a whole bunch of high-tech textiles, including nano clean fibers and yarns which turn on your lights.
OK, I’m sure there are a great many serious and sober uses for these materials, but at the moment it’s the fun factor which is attracting me here.
Tagging this ‘better living through chemistry’
