Reports on Global Graphene Market 2020 - Graphene in textile application (1) - Europe
DirectaPlus, Italy
DirectaPlus is an Italian graphene manufacture located at Lomazzo in Italy. DirectaPlus applied a “liquid-Exfoliation “process to produce graphene material and focused on the development of textile application with downstream local brands in Italy. Currently, DirectaPlus has accomplished several graphene-based apparels which are launched after 2017. DirectaPlus claimed that they had already built up a mass production line for graphene materials（G+®）with a capacity of 3.1 tons per year. DirectaPlus also had merged a membrane manufacture named Osmotek to produce graphene membrane by themselves. DirectaPlus co-developed a well-known graphene jacket with a local apparel brand – Culmar, and had been awarded at 2017 ISPO fair. This main projective of graphene jacket is to enhance the heat insulation function and to have anti-bacterial and deodorant properties. Besides, DirectaPlus and Culmar also input this unique function of heat transmission to develop the graphene printing lining fabric, and will launch this new product after 2019.
Pictures from Culmar
With this successful experience, DirectaPlus had built up multiple partnership with several Euro Brands to develop graphene added functional apparel. Most of them are Italy local brands and they all have common purpose on the thermal comfort resulted by heat transmission from graphene. For example, DirectaPlus signed a cooperation agreement with Alfredo Grassi and aim the market on graphene functional apparel. Alfredo Grassi applied graphene printing on the fabric for cooling effect and try to reduce the skin/body temperature while wearing. It is expected that graphene printing fabric could be applied into the work wearing suits and prove their poor wearing comfort. Based on the press release of DirectaPlus in this April, DirectaPlus pointed out that since their partnership with Alfredo Grassi is getting closer, and it has been accomplished for over 80000 square meters of graphene functional apparel during past project, DirectaPlus announced a extend cooperation contract with Alfredo Grassi for three years. And the goal for their cooperation will move from current work wearing suits toward to the military suits.
Picture from Alfredo Grassi
DirectaPlus had coopertated with D-ONE, a compression garment manufacture in Italy, to develop a special runner garment using the heat conducting behavior of graphene. Their prospective is to offer a heat insultation and thermal regulation function for D-ONE runner garment, and to respond the demand from consumers with a nature, non- chemicals and toxics natures.
Picture from D-ONE
DirectaPlus also cooperated with Eurojersey to develop a new functional fabric – Sensitive. They applied graphene with different ways by laminating membrane to single- or double-layered Sensitive fabric or using a graphene printing on the membrane, which we usually call it as 2.5D design. DirectaPlus believed that heat dissipation function of graphene can put body heat to spread all around the human body when the weather got cold, and release the body heat to environment when weather get hot.
Picture from Eurojersey
DiretaPlus also worked with Arvind who is Italian garments manufacture to develop a graphene functional denim. The main purpose is not only on the wearing comfort but also on the antibacterial function of graphene, and hopes to bring some extra-deodorant effect to graphene functional denim.
Pictures from Arvind
VOLLEBAK, Britsh
Vollebak is British on-line garment company, they had already to develop a graphene reversible jacket with heat insulation and heat radiation. The concept is to develop a uniform graphene coating on the fabric to get warm-up while wearing graphene jacket. When the graphene coating layer is at outside, graphene will absorb the energy especially the UV light from environment and release the energy to human body while wearing graphene coating layer at inside. At the same time, the graphene coating layer still have a high waterproof and breathability to make sure the wearing comfort.
Pictures from Vollebak
Oakley, United States/Italy
Oakley is an American garment brands at Lake Forest, California. Although Oakley is a well-known American brand, in fact they are the subsidiary to the giant Italian garment manufacture - Luxottica, so it would be classified as European. Their main products and services are to design, develop and manufacture the sports gears and accessories, including the sunglasses, goggles for sports and ski, watches, apparel, bag, and shoes. Oakley had cooperated with DirectaPlus to develop the graphene bike suits and claimed more effective on heat transfer will come from graphene printing layer. At the same time, Oakley claimed an obvious reduction on body temperature of 0.5℃ for graphene bike suits could be observed in the practical test.
Pictures from Oakley
Alé Cycling , Italy
Alé Cycling is a professional Italian cycling suits maker and also launched a cycling suits with graphene printing layer, named Velocity G+. Alé Cycling claimed that the graphene printing layer will activate the interaction between the human body and fabric to make a perfect temperature distribution and enhance the biker’s performance. The news shows that graphene will not only bring the enhancing body activities but provide an antibacterial function on fabric and suppress the odor.
Manchester Univerty, British
As the origin for the discovery of graphene, Manchester university has been funded massively. Manchester university not only established a National Graphene Institute and Graphene Engineering Innovation Center inside their campus, also recruit a lot of graphene experts to develop all kinds of graphene application to explore the unknowing possibility of graphene. Dr. Nazmul Karim drew a lot of attention for an outstanding paper “First Scalable graphene yarns for wearable textile”. Dr. Nazmul Karim’ reports shows that modified graphene could be fixed at the surface of cotton yarns by a regular dyeing process after proper modification to graphene, and generate a certain electrical conductivity to cotton yarns (their surface resistance is 42.7kΩ/cm). Unfortunately, this results still does not pass the requirement of smart textile, and their conductivity will dramatically decrease to an insulation state after 5 times washing. But, their ideas still give us a imagination for new processing on graphene.
Pictures from papers -First Scalable graphene yarns for wearable textile
Haydale, British
Haydale is a British stock company for graphene application, their core technology focus on dry modification process. Haydale are now on mass production of modified graphene at England and Thailand. Haydale and Printing technology Center of Welsh university have jointly announced their cooperation on graphene smart sportswear. Their goal is to utilize the lightweight graphene printed circuit to improve the performance of the British athlete for Tokyo Olympic. Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 in this year, the Tokyo Olympics has been postponed to next year, the related news on their current development are still not clear.
Pictures from Haydale
Thomas Swan, British
Thomas Swan is a British manufacture for high mixer and famous on the cooperated development of university of Ireland for liquid-exfoliation process. Thomas Swan and graphene Engineering Innovation Center of Manchester university had cooperated nylon-6 mono filament, and they claimed a continuous spinning of 1.5km could be achieved under a graphene content of 0.2 wt% for nylon-6 mono filament and the diameter of nylon filament is around 0.39μm. The news shows the nylon filament could provide a machinal enhancement for carbon brush of mortor, seatbelt, and fishing net.
Picture from Thomas Swan
Versarien, British
Versarien is a British graphene innovation company, their predecessor was Cambridge Graphene, a start-up company established by the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. In 2017, Versarien acquired more than 85% of the start-up company's shares and officially became the owner. Currently, the major product of Versarien is graphene functional ink for diverse application. In this march, Versarien announced a MOU with Asia textile manufacture to develop a graphene sportswear with Versarien’s graphene ink. Their main purpose is including the thermal conduction and moisture control.