Functional Textiles with Smart Properties: Their Fabrications and Sustainable Applications

Abstract

Benefiting from inherent lightweight, flexibility, and good adaptability to human body, functional textiles are attracting tremendous attention to cope with wearable issues in sustainable applications around human beings. In this feature article, a comprehensive and thoughtful review is proposed regarding research activities of functional textiles with smart properties. Specifically, a brief exposition of highlighting the significance and rising demands of novel textiles throughout the human society is begun. Next, a systematic review is provided about the fabrication of functional textiles from 1D spinning, 2D modification, and 3D construction, their diverse functionality as well as sustainable applications, showing a clear picture of evolved textiles to the readers. How to engineer the compositions, structures, and properties of functional textiles is elaborated to achieve different smart properties. All these tunable, upgraded, and versatile properties make the developed textiles well suited for extensive applications ranging from environmental monitoring or freshwater access to personal protection and wearable power supply. Finally, a simple summary and critical analysis is drawn, with emphasis on the insight into remaining challenges and future directions. With worldwide efforts, advance and breakthrough in textile functionalization expounded in this review will promote the revolution of smart textiles for intelligence era.