Recent advances in biomedical textiles

February 24, 2025  |  Features

In 2003 after 13 years of global collaboration, the Human Genome Project was successfully completed, providing a comprehensive blueprint of human genetic information. This has given impetus to a rapidly expanding level of research in disease diagnosis such as cancer, personalized medical treatments,…
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Challenges and rewards

February 10, 2025  |  Features

Biomedical textiles are a highly specialized, relatively small segment of the global textile industry. Even among the more advanced textile technologies, the path to commercializing medical textiles, generally, and biomedical textiles, in particular, is unusually challenging, facing stringent indus…
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The crisis of textile waste

January 27, 2025  |  Features

December 12, 2024, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report titled “Textile Waste: Federal Entities Should Collaborate on Reduction and Recycling Efforts.” The report also offers practical solutions to address the problem, centering on a collaborative approach. Not that it wil…
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Textile waste to wealth

January 13, 2025  |  Features

According to the United Nations’ Environment Programme, cities globally are expected to produce 2.2 billion tons of waste each year by 2025. Given the economic, environmental and health impacts of waste, it is important for the textile industry to reduce, reuse and recycle the waste. For example, …
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An end-of-year industry wrap-up 

December 16, 2024  |  Features

Research and development (R&D) have a direct impact national economies. In the case of textiles, including agriculture related to textiles, it provides job opportunities to many millions including an unskilled workforce. Particularly, within the textile industry, advanced textiles and chemicals …
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Noteworthy innovations in healthcare textiles

December 9, 2024  |  Features

In the midst of noteworthy innovations in healthcare textiles over this past year, comes the news that the Taliban has now forbidden women to train in midwifery in Afghanistan, where the number of mothers who die in childbirth is amongst the highest in the world. Midwifery was also the last form of …
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A plan for meeting EPA PFAS regulations 

November 18, 2024  |  Features

As state and federal PFAS regulations continue to increase, textile manufacturers must prioritize thorough record-keeping and create a long-term plan for their business to accommodate these regulations. At this year’s Advanced Textiles Expo and Emerging Technologies Conference (ETC) in Anaheim, Ca…
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Advances in Textile Recycling

November 11, 2024  |  Features

Advanced textile recycling, including chemical, enzymatic, and molecular technologies, is considered by many to be the path to true circularity, making waste into materials not once, but over and over.
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Surmountable challenges

October 28, 2024  |  Features

The smart fabric segment of the textile industry is poised to grow from $4.19 billion in 2024 to $15.21 billion by 2032, according to a Business Research Insights market report, but stumbling blocks remain that keep smart products from wider acceptance, and therefore even larger commercial success. …
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The biomaterials alternative 

October 14, 2024  |  Features

This year’s Emerging Technologies Conference, presented by the Advanced Textiles Association (ATA) had a clear focus on the topics on everyone’s minds, with sessions addressing sustainability and PFAS updates, smart textiles and e-textile technology, biomaterials, artificial intelligence, texti…
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