Fire is indeed one of the major contributing factors to fatalities, property damage, and economic disruption. A large number of fire incidents across the world cause devastation beyond measure and description every year. To minimalize their impacts, the implementation of innovative and effective fire early warning technologies is essential. Despite the fact that research publications on fire detection technology have addressed the issue to some extent, fire detection technology still confronts hurdles in decreasing false alerts, improving sensitivity and dynamic responsibility, and providing protection for costly and complicated installations. In this review, we aim to provide a comprehensive analysis of the current futuristic practices in the context of fire detection and monitoring strategies, with an emphasis on the methods of detecting fire through the continuous monitoring of variables, such as temperature, flame, gaseous content, and smoke, along with their respective benefits and drawbacks, measuring standards, and parameter measurement spans. Current research directions and challenges related to the technology of fire detection and future perspectives on fabricating advanced fire sensors are also provided. We hope such a review can provide inspiration for fire sensor research dedicated to the development of advanced fire detection techniques.

The commercial availability of inorganic/organic precursors for sol-gel formulations is very high and increases day by day. In textile applications, the precursor-synthesized sol-gels along with functional chemicals can be deposited onto textile fabrics in one step by rolling, padding, dip-coating, spraying or spin coating. By using this technology, it is possible to provide fabrics with functional/multi-functional characteristics including flame retardant, anti-mosquito, water- repellent, oil-repellent, anti-bacterial, anti-wrinkle, ultraviolet (UV) protection and self-cleaning properties. These surface properties are discussed, describing the history, basic chemistry, factors affecting the sol-gel synthesis, progress in sol-gel technology along with various parameters controlling sol-gel technology. Additionally, this review deals with the recent progress of sol-gel technology in textiles in addressing fabric finishing, water repellent textiles, oil/water separation, flame retardant, UV protection and self-cleaning, self-sterilizing, wrinkle resistance, heat storage, photochromic and thermochromic color changes and the improvement of the durability and wear resistance properties.

Wearable electronics with miniaturization and high-power density call for devices with advanced thermal management capabilities, outstanding flexibility, and excellent permeability. However, it is difficult to achieve these goals simultaneously due to the conflict between high thermal conductivity and permeability and flexibility. Here, we report an approach to fabricate flexible, breathable composites with advanced thermal management capability by coating the boron nitride nanosheets (BNNSs) layer with high thermal conductivity on the grids of patterned electrospun thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) fibrous mats. The composite exhibited a significant enhancement of thermal conductivity and preserved instinctive breathability simultaneously. When the composite was integrated into flexible devices, its saturating operating temperature dropped significantly compared to that of pure Ecoflex packaging. Moreover, the surface temperature fluctuation was less than 0.5 °C during more than 2000 cycles bending-releasing process. Finally, a prototype to fabricate wearable electronics with advanced thermal management capability was proposed.