The UK-based National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has won a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) award for its work in the field of smart textiles from ‘Innovate UK’ and will be partnering with Coventry University for the same. NPL and Coventry will collectively explore the additive techniques for applying conductive tracks to a range of textiles, which find applications across the wearable technology sector within health, sports and military. The process of depositing nano-particulate silver onto fibres has already been developed by NPL. The next step in the additive process will use the metallisation expertise at Coventry University to thicken the conductive layer and develop a robust prototype.
