Novel Additive Manufactured Clothing with Potential for Comfort and Recyclability, Journal of Fiber Science and Technology, 2022, 78(11), 184-193.
Hiroki Murase, Saya Murata, Kanako Kumaoka
Additive Manufacturing (AM), which enables modeling of complex shapes and rapid prototyping, is attracting attention in various fields. In this study, the application of AM to the fabrication of clothing was examined. Although AM has been used to make clothes in the past, those are made of plastic chain mail, etc., and are not comfortable enough for daily wear. Therefore, a novel fabric-like material was developed that is made by filling cotton yarns on a flat surface and drawing a pattern made of flexible polymer on the surface of the cotton yarn by AM. Clothes made of this fabric-like material are expected to be as comfortable as conventional clothes because only the cotton yarns touch our skin when we wear the clothes. Moreover, this technology can be used to make a single garment using only a piece of cotton yarn, and the concept was demonstrated this by making a prototype. This garment can be recycled by removing the flexible polymer with a solvent or other means, and the continuous cotton yarn can be recovered and recycled.
