Thermal signature reduction in camouflage textiles is a vital requirement to protect soldiers from detection by thermal imaging equipment in low-light conditions. Thermal signature reduction can be achieved by decreasing the surface temperature of the subject by using a low thermally conductive material, such as polycarbonate, which contains bisphenol A. Polycarbonate is a hard type of plastic that generally ends up in dumps and landfills. Accordingly, there is a large amount of polycarbonate waste that needs to be managed to reduce its drawbacks to the environment. Polycarbonate waste has great potential to be used as a material for recycled fibre by the melt spinning method. In this research, polycarbonate roofing-sheet waste was extruded using a 2 mm diameter of spinnerette and a 14 mm barrel diameter in a 265 °C temperature process by using a lab-scale melt spinning machine at various plunger and take-up speeds. The fibres were then inserted into 1 × 1 rib-stitch knitted fabric made by Nm 15 polyacrylic commercial yarns, which were manufactured by a flat knitting machine. The results showed that applying recycled polycarbonate fibre as a fibre insertion in polyacrylic knitted fabric reduced the emitted infrared and thermal signature of the fabric.

This study observed the potential application of chicken feather waste as main material of nonwoven insulator. The experiments were conducted by varying the comparison of the orientation of chicken feathers to produce the optimal insulation material which is evaluated from thermal properties of the material and area density. Chicken feathers have a lightweight, strong, porous and hydrophobic, it is potentially used as a textile insulation material. In this research, the chicken feather waste is sorted and cleaned by chemical process then processed into nonwoven fabric with polypropylene net with thermal bonded method. The weight fraction of chicken feather and polypropylene adjusted at 10 : 4.5 according to previous experiment. Chicken feather in various orientation and polypropylene web sheet processed by thermal bonded nonwoven machine in 150 °C processing temperature, heating pressure was 10 psi and heating time adjusted automatically for 6 minutes. Produced insulator nonwoven than used to cover thermocouple (thermal sensor) and placed inside Tomori Total Refrigerating Equipment with 0.5 °C and Autcomp Electric Oven with 40.0 °C. The result of tensile test showed that nonwoven fabric made from chicken feather waste with unidirectional orientation was 6 times higher than tensile strength of commercial insulator material. Hot air insulation test result for unidirectional chicken feather showed best performance compare to commercial insulation material. In cold air insulation test, the best performance achieved by random orientation chicken feather. Based on the application testing to hot and cold air resistance, it can be seen that nonwoven fabric made from chicken waste with unidirectional orientation is able to maintain better temperature and better heat conduction resistance than commercial insulation material.

The rise of wearable technology has gradually shifted modern health monitoring from clinical to personal use. Smart wearables can collect physiological signals and show them directly on a smartphone. In contemporary healthcare scenarios, this big data could aid medical doctors in online health analysis. Most currently available wearables are designed to monitor specific health parameters, while the combination of many devices is practically not convenient and not cost-effective. Therefore, a strong trend is towards the development of multifunctional devices. This demands, however, alternative sources of power other than conventional batteries. The concept of human-body-powered biosensing textiles (HBBTs) addresses this challenge. By harvesting energy produced from the human body such as motion, pressure, vibration, heat, and metabolites and converting them into electricity, HBBTs could potentially work without a battery. Additionally, the textiles themselves provide a suitable substrate for interconnects and biosensors, such that a system based on HBBTs could provide multifunctional health monitoring. This review explains the fundamental theories, the classification, the energy-conversion efficiency assessment, and the possible biomonitoring applications of HBBTs. Furthermore, we discuss the challenges for technology maturity and the perspectives of HBBTs in shaping the future of health monitoring.

Textile-based sensors fabricated using the direct-coating method are the appropriate choice to meet the aspects of flexibility, non-invasiveness, and lightness for continuous monitoring of the human body. The characteristics of the sensor substrate are directly influenced by factors such as the type of weave, thread fineness, fabric density, and the type of polymeric constituent fibers. The fabric used as the sensor substrate, fabricated using the direct-coating method, must be capable of retaining the electrode paste solution, which has higher viscosity, on one surface of the fabric to avoid short circuits during the fabrication process. However, during its application, this fabric should allow the easy passage of analyte solutions with low viscosity as much as possible. Hence, an appropriate fabric construction is required to serve as the substrate for textile-based sensors to ensure the success of the fabrication process and the effectiveness of the resulting sensor’s performance. The development of the structural design of the fabric to be used as a substrate for non-invasive biosensors with a multilayer concept is carried out by weaving and sewing processes utilizing polyester-viscose fibers. During the production process, variations are applied, such as weft yarn density, the characterization of wetting time, absorption rate, maximum wetted radius, spreading speed, and accumulative one-way transport index. The most suitable fabric for use as a substrate for non-invasive biosensors with a multilayer concept, such as in this research, is a fabric with a weft thread density of 70 strands per inch, along with the addition of an analyte transfer thread configuration.

Recycled fiber has a great potential as a solution to meet overgrowing synthetic fiber demand and reduce plastic waste in the same time. In the previous research, bottle cap waste is used as the material of the recycled fiber. The result shows that fiber tenacity of recyled fiber from bottle cap waste has low tenacity, different polymer. This phenomena may have been caused by the present of pigment molecule. This research focused on producing recycled fiber from straw waste which has low pigment content. Straw waste was washed and cleaned before the cutting process. Then, the waste was processed in the experiment melt spinning machine with plunger system and single hole orifice in various diameter, 4 mm, 10 mm and 15 mm. The processing temperature was 140° C temperature in three take-up speed, 3.00 m/minutes, 10.30 m/ minutes and 19.16 m/ minutes. The diameter and cross section shape of recycled polyethylene fiber were obtained by using electric microscope with software assistance. The linear density of the recycled fiber was analysed by calculating it with denier and the mechanical strength of the fiber was measured in accordance with the ASTM D 3379-75 standard. High take-up speed leads to higher linear density and take-up speed value is proportionally linear with the tenacity of fiber produced. Moreover, the spinneret diameter is proportionally linear with linear density but it is inversely linear with the tenacity of the fiber produced.