The new material could one day weave itself into smart clothing and other products.
is billed as the world’s first stimuli-responsive material capable of reacting to two external influences—in this case, both heat and electricity. In doing so, the novel SMP can not only change color and shape, but can return to its original form after the stimuli is removed. Check out a video of the material in action below:
To achieve their breakthrough, researchers employed a device similar to a traditional loom to manufacture a fabric composed of thin, interwoven recycled plastic polymer and stainless steel threads. Compared to previous, similar materials, the new fabric is activated via lower electrical voltage, thus making it cheaper and more energy-efficient.
“The mentioned features make the fabric an outstanding candidate for wearable devices, textiles, sensing, anti-counterfeiting, human-scale orthopedic device fields, and biomimetic applications,” in their findings. To show off the latter potential, the team even constructed a cute, dragonfly-shaped form by subjecting their smart fabric to heat and electrical charges.“Through the ability to sense and react to environmental stimuli such as temperature, this is proof of concept that our new material can interact with the environment to monitor ecosystems without damaging them,” said Milad Kamkar a professor of chemical engineering and paper co-author.