Burlington Industries And The Military Bring Nanotechnology To The Uniform Market

GETTING BIGGER BY GETTING SMALL

Scientists have been working with atomic matter for some time. They are busy, for example, trying to develop molecule-sized computers and tiny robots that travel the bloodstream like sub-atomic superheroes. Now, scientists have turned their attention to trousers.

Greensboro, N.C.-based Burlington Industries has brought some of these great advances in nanotechnology into the uniform and general apparel industries.

Nanotechnology is the science of manipulating materials billionths of a meter wide. It is a branch of science that sparks the imagination could we truly have smart fabrics?

This is practical stuff that is out there in the market right now, says David Blalock of Burlington Industries. Burlington wanted technology that was undetectable and enhances everyday fabrics. It was important the product did not obviously have something on it or in it. The technology needed to be invisible.

This is where the nano part comes in. The revolutionary possibilities of nanotechnology lie in engineering at a molecular level to create a limitless array of performance features that become part of a fabrics permanent character.

In 1998, Burlington CEO George Henderson took a call from Nano-Tex founder David Soane, a chemist and entrepreneur who was looking for ways to market the technology he had developed at his laboratory outside San Francisco. Soane was able to produce fabrics that contained billions of tiny nano-whiskers that can make a pair of slacks or a dress shirt stain-repellent without sacrificing key qualities such as softness and breathability.

Nano-Tex and Burlington spent a year and a half running trials before they nailed the process. By then, Burlington had bought a controlling interest in Nano-Tex.

The fabrics look like any other textiles until examined under an electron microscope. Deep in the fabric lie billions upon billions of structures that look like whiskers. Each whisker is just 10 nanometers long. To put this in perspective, a single grain of sand measures 100,000 nanometers. The result is fabric so dense that liquids can hardly penetrate it.

The whiskers are added by dipping cotton fabric in a proprietary chemical solution before the fabric is cut. Because the particles are so small, they easily penetrate the fabric and coat each cotton thread completely without changing the way it looks or feels.

Burlington and Nano-Tex have developed similar stain-resistant products for synthetic fibers on an organic, cottonlike substance to create a garment that combines the longevity of polyester with the comfortable feel of natural fabric.

The applications for Burlington products over the next few years are numerous. There are also significant fashion and uniform programs already using the technology.

For the uniform industry, the product that has generated the most interest so far is NanoDry, which is moisture wicking technology, says Blalock. You take a synthetic product, impart the NanoDry technology on it, and you now have a breathable fabric that dries quickly, wicks body moisture and is durable. You have successfully taken a synthetic product and added a comfort feature to it.

Blalock also observed that technology for the uniform market has traditionally only been for the uniform market. The average person, who was not in the uniform business, could not relate to it. Now, Blalock explains, Burlington has a product that has name recognition across the entire apparel market. Many fashion brand names are using the technology such as Lee, Eddie Bauer, Levis, The Gap and Lands End. The NanoCare product is on many of their web sites.
This type of consumer exposure has given new meaning to what Burlington is providing in the uniform market.

Employees experience the performance factors of clothes in their everyday life and demand it in their uniforms, says Blalock.

SMALL SOLUTIONS FOR SOLDIERS

The next big thing for the American soldier of tomorrow may turn out to be very small.
Recently, the U.S. Army and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) unveiled a new 30,000-square-foot research facility called the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, or ISN.
Think really small, says Ned Thomas, director of the new ISN facility. Nanotechnologies is, broadly speaking, the manipulation of atoms, molecules matter at the very smallest of scales to design at the molecular level devices that can give unprecedented function.

And by changing how materials and objects work on the most basic of levels, researchers might be able to help answer some of the Armys most pressing concerns, says Thomas.
Case in point, says Thomas, is the militarys age-old concern of protecting troopers from deadly battlefield hazards without adding extra weight or hindering soldiers mobility.

During the Iraq war, current generation bullet-resistant body armor provided more than adequate protection for soldiers torsos, but not their arms or legs.

If you try to put the same body armor on your arms and extremities, youd be like the Michelin Tire man, says Thomas. You would barely be able to move around.

Instead, Thomas says nanotechnology researchers envision a way to create new strands of cloth composed of hollow tubes no thicker than human hair. Inside the tubes would be tiny magnets suspended in liquid.

The cloth would remain flexible until you apply an electrical charge to it. When that happens, says Thomas, the magnets would line up and stiffen the fibers to prevent bullets from penetrating.
Most of the time, soldiers dont need the stiff and heavy protection, says Thomas. With such so-called dynamic armor, You could have the flexible uniform, comfortable to move in. But when a bullet actually strikes the uniform the uniform changes, he says.

Such advanced nanotechnology materials might also yield uniforms or battle suits that protect against biowarfare weapons as well as weather.

Other ideas that could come out of ISN include devices to dole out instant medical attention and tiny sensors in helmets that would let you know when an enemys sneaking up from behind.

The Army has invested about $50 million in the ISN facility, which will be staffed by about 350 people, including 120 MIT students, professors, military scientists and industrial researchers from companies such as Raytheon.