Wearable e-textiles are able to perform electronic functions and are perceived as a way to add features into common wearable textiles, building competitive market advantages. The e-textile production has become not only a research effort but also an industrial production challenge. It is important to know how to use existing industrial processes or to develop new ones that are able to scale up production, ensuring the behavior and performance of prototypes. Despite the technical challenges, there are already some examples of wearable e-textiles where sensors, actuators, and production techniques were used to seamlessly embed electronic features into traditional wearable textiles, which allow for daily use without a bionic stigma.

The low concentration behaviour and the increase of the dielectric constant in carbon nanotubes/polymer nanocomposites near the percolation threshold are still not well understood. In this work, a numerical model has been developed which focuses on the effect of the inclusion of conductive fillers in a dielectric polymer matrix on the dielectric constant and the dielectric strength. Experiments have been carried out in carbon nanotubes/poly(vinylidene fluoride) nanocomposites in order to compare to the simulation results. This work shows how the critical concentration is related to the formation of capacitor networks and that these networks give rise to high variations in the electrical properties of the composites. Based on numerical studies, the dependence of the percolation transition on the preparation of the nanocomposite is discussed. Finally, based on numerical and experimental results, both ours and from other authors, the causes of anomalous percolation behaviour of the dielectric constant are identified.

An integrated textile electronic system is reported here, enabling a truly free form factor system via textile manufacturing integration of fiber-based electronic components. Intelligent and smart systems require freedom of form factor, unrestricted design, and unlimited scale. Initial attempts to develop conductive fibers and textile electronics failed to achieve reliable integration and performance required for industrial-scale manufacturing of technical textiles by standard weaving technologies. Here, we present a textile electronic system with functional one-dimensional devices, including fiber photodetectors (as an input device), fiber supercapacitors (as an energy storage device), fiber field-effect transistors (as an electronic driving device), and fiber quantum dot light-emitting diodes (as an output device). As a proof of concept applicable to smart homes, a textile electronic system composed of multiple functional fiber components is demonstrated, enabling luminance modulation and letter indication depending on sunlight intensity.