Washability and abrasion resistance of illuminative knitted e-textiles with POFs and silver-coated conductive yarns

For the integration of conductive yarns in e-textiles, knitting offers structural versatility and malleability for wider product applications in the contexts of wearables and interiors. To enable mass adoption of conductive materials, it is imperative for users to be able to launder these materials as part of product maintenance. Interactive textiles knitted from polymeric optical fibres (POFs) and silver-coated conductive yarns are able to illuminate and change colours via integrated touch sensor systems. Current research only focuses on the washability and abrasion resistance of conductive yarns solely and not both POF and conductive yarn within the same fabric structure. This study is novel as it investigates the washability and abrasion resistance of POF and silver-coated conductive yarn integrated knitted textiles with different loop structures and the impact to their illuminative function. POFs were knitted within the same fabric structure by the inlay method using a 7-gauge industrial hand-operated flatbed knitting machine. This study examined how washing and abrasion affect POFs and silver-coated conductive yarn in five different knit structures, and the illuminative function of the knitted textiles. Washing and abrasion affected the resistance of conductive yarns. Scratches and bent POFs were observed after 20 gentle washing cycles. However, washing had minimal impact on the illuminative function of the knitted e-textiles examined in this study. The experiments provide evidence that e-textiles knitted with POFs and conductive yarns in the same fabric structure withstand washing and abrasion and thus have the potential for mass market adoption in fashion and interior applications.