High-tech textiles and garments become new development trends

With the slowdown of the global economic growth and the general downturn in the traditional textile market, the textile industries in the developed countries such as Europe, America and Japan have increased their added value, expanded product sales, and made full use of advanced science and technology to actively develop high technology. Textiles and clothing have achieved remarkable results and it is expected that this will become a new trend in the development of the global textile industry.

The United States has launched a series of high-tech textiles and clothing this year. Malden Textile Company of the United States has developed a fabric that can automatically generate heat through microfibre and lithium batteries; Strauss introduced jeans made of microfibers and has sweat-removing function; Northface introduced a small lithium battery For high-tech jackets for energy, the temperature of the clothes can be adjusted using a regulator; Hanis will launch in July a fat-free shaping pantyhose that will make tea and concentrated grapefruit woven into a fine-grained capsule; MIT Military Nano The Institute of Science and Technology is also planning to begin the next month to develop soldiers uniforms that can be used to fight venom, gas, and auto-injury, changing colors according to the site environment.

In the European region, the "Textile Club" consisting of more than 30 textile companies in the Northern France-Pas-de-Calais region has introduced a "light-emitting cloth" made of optical fibers and traditional weaving yarns, which can be widely used for signal signs, safety warnings and the rear of trucks. After the Pengbu; France Telecom developed a knitted underwear with fiber optic frequency screen, can change the color according to user requirements. The British Football Medicine and Sports Sciences Division developed a special thermal vest for the England national team to keep the wearer cool and comfortable, reduce sweating and avoid dehydration. Swedish TEXCOTE Company has used nanotechnology to develop waterproof, wrinkle-free and antifouling coatings that can be used on fabrics such as cotton, linen, silk and wool.

In Asia, Japanese textile companies have recently developed a special cotton hollow fiber fabric with windproof, waterproof, and wicking capabilities. The cost is lower than that of general down insulation materials, and the thermal coefficient and heat preservation effect are good. Fuji textile company developed a This kind of fabric contains special chemicals that help people take daily vitamin C. Korean apparel companies have introduced super-floating textiles. With 300 grams of such textiles, people weighing 130 kilograms can easily float in water.

Although China's textile enterprises have also conducted research on high-tech textiles and clothing, overall, research and development efforts are still insufficient. Products with high technological content are relatively few, and there is a large gap with developed countries. Relevant data show that the number of textile invention patents applied by foreign textile companies in China has long been leading the number of domestic enterprises. In the high-speed development of the textile industry from 1985 to 1994, there were 1,102 patent applications for textile inventions in China, and 1,307 textile invention patents applied by foreign companies in China during the same period; textile patents applied abroad in China from 1994 to 1998. More than 400 pieces higher than domestic ones. At present, the quota limits for textiles in developed countries are limited to a limited amount, while textiles exported by China are mostly middle- and low-grade products with low exchange rates, and a considerable part of them are textile raw materials. In the face of increasing technical barriers to trade, especially the green barriers in Europe, the United States, Japan, and other countries, China’s textile exports have been seriously affected. According to incomplete statistics, the coverage of China's textiles that do not meet the requirements of "green" is about 15%, affecting exports of nearly 8 billion U.S. dollars. After China's accession to the WTO, the textile market has become increasingly fierce. To improve the international competitiveness of textiles and garments, China should take active measures to increase the technological content of products and develop new high-tech products and multifunctional products.

As for how to speed up the research and development of high-tech textiles and apparel in China, experts in the industry believe that there are three areas that need special attention:

First, we must attach great importance to the research and development of high-tech textiles in an important position. The development of high-tech textiles and garments is a development trend that meets the requirements of the times and meets the needs of consumers. China is a big country for the production and sale of textiles, but most of the products produced and sold are still textiles with low technological content. Faced with the grim situation in which major textile producing countries actively develop high-tech textiles and clothing, if we do not attach importance to the development of high-tech products, the competitiveness of our textile and apparel products in the international market will be seriously affected and the development of the textile industry will be further affected. This requires efforts to improve the level of textile technology and improve the technological content of products.

The second is to increase investment and increase research and development of high-tech textiles and clothing. Due to the use of cutting-edge manufacturing technology, the US textile industry has increased production capacity by 165 percent since 1990. The United States has invested a lot of money in research and development of cutting-edge technologies. Since 1987, the American textile industry has invested an average of more than 2 billion U.S. dollars annually in advanced production equipment. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Nanotechnology Institute, the University of Massachusetts Institute of Technology has a research and development fund of 50 million U.S. dollars allocated by the Ministry of Defense. More than 150 textile companies in the Northern-Garai Strait area, one of France's major “technical textiles” industrial clusters, have also invested heavily in the research and development of high-tech textiles. Therefore, China's textile industry must be willing to invest in research and development of high-tech products.

The third is to strengthen cooperation with scientific research institutions and jointly develop new special varieties and functional products so as to achieve the optimal combination of technological innovation and key factors, so that scientific and technological achievements can be transformed into modern productive forces in a timely manner, and the competitiveness of enterprises’ products can be enhanced. A more successful experience gained by foreign textile industry. The U.S. Department of Defense uses the research strength of the MIT Nanotechnology Institute to develop high-tech soldiers uniforms; the French textile company develops technical textiles in conjunction with the French National Textile Technology and Technology School. In this respect, China also has a good example. The Wuhan Institute of Technology (formerly the Textile Institute) has accelerated the pace of industrialization of scientific and technological achievements. The project "Research on Photochemical Decolorization Technology and Equipment for Printing and Dyeing Wastewater" promoted by Prof. Zeng Qingfu as a legal entity has been listed as a key industrialization project by Wuhan City, and it has also received a one million yuan science and technology small and medium-sized Ministry of Science and Technology. Corporate technology innovation. Entrepreneurs and scientific and technological workers in China should actively promote this cooperative relationship and jointly promote the research and development of high-tech textiles and apparel in China.