Title Promoter Affiliations Abstract "Elastic, electrically conductive textile structures for intelligent textiles" "Lieva Van Langenhove" "Department of Materials, Textiles and Chemical Engineering" "The goal of this project is the creation of elastic, electrically conductive textile structures (elastic e-textiles) of which the conductivity remains constant upon elongation (up to a maximum of 100%), in which the guide does not have any influence on the specific textile character (deformability, feel), and the classic textile properties (such as strength, abrasion resistance, ...) and wherein the retaining remain conductive properties after repeated deformation and maintenance (max. 100 washes). It is intended that these textile structures eventually be used in biomedical applications such as clothing (such as integrated electrodes for measuring heart rate or textile electrodes for electrostimulation)." "TEXTILE BASED CAPACITOR/BATTERY FOR SMART TEXTILE SYSTEM APPLICATION" "Lieva Van Langenhove" "Department of Materials, Textiles and Chemical Engineering" "In this research, textile capacitors/batteries are developed using either silver coated yarns or pure stainless steel filaments as electrodes. PEDOT:PSS is used as a solid electrolyte. The remaining part of this research aims at studying the fabricated device to improve on its performance and at meausuring its behavior after washing." "Boosting collaboration between research centres and industry to enhance rapid industrial uptake of innovative functional textile structures and textile related materials in a mondial market U+2013 2BFUNTEX" "Paul Kiekens" "Department of Materials, Textiles and Chemical Engineering" "2BFUNTEX aims at developing an Open Innovation Platform for current and future actions in research, education and technology transfer in the field of functional textiles for all innovation actors. Further, multidisciplinary teams will be set up oriented towards untapping the experienced potential and to enhance transfer of the knowledge available at universities and research institutes to industry to favour rapid industrial uptake." "POLEOT : Printing of Light Emitting Devices On Textile for the use in technical and communicative clothing and textile" "Wim DEFERME" "Engineering Materials and Applications" "POLEOT is an ambitious project that embraces both technological and scientific challenges. It aims to develop innovative textiles with luminous properties suitable for numerous advanced applications such as protective clothing, signage and communicative fabric. Printable, luminous inks for textile purposes are the main innovations in this project." "Fire Retardant Textile and Leather" "David De Smet" "R&D Textile functionalisation and surface modification, Centexbel - Scientific and Technical Centre of the Belgian Textile industry" "BackgroundThe REACH regulation for chemical substances has a large impact on coating and finishing industry. Some flame retardants (FR) have been banned by EU regulations (REACH) for their environmental-unfriendliness. Therefore, there is a need to look into new alternative environmentally-friendly FR additives. Next to the regulation, industry is challenged by the increasing ""bio, eco, natural and environmental friendly"" consciousness of the consumer resulting in various textile and leather labels. Furthermore, environmental guidelines and regulations prescribe a reduction of CO2-emission. An important strategy to achieve this is the replacement of petrochemical resources by CO2-neutral alternative products such as biopolymers. Materials, totally based on CO2-neutral renewable resources (biobased materials), constitute a significant enhancement in respect to ecological and procedural aspects. The development of non-toxic biobased FR is still a challenge and demands the elaboration of novel formulations and compounds for coating and finishing.GoalsThe aim is to develop non-toxic, durable and biobased FR coatings and finishes. It is known that phosphorylated bio-based polymers (e.g. modified lignin) have a FR effect through barrier layer formation. It is also known that the combination of phosphorus and nitrogen-containing compounds often acts synergistically and is therefore already used in conventional FR systems. This principle should now be transferred to proteins. Proteins are suitable for developing biobased FR thanks to the high quantity of nitrogen. Chemical modification of proteins with phosphorous containing groups will increase the FR efficiency. For this, suitable non-food proteins are selected and modified by phosphorylation. The modified proteins will be characterized regarding their chemical composition, esp. nitrogen and phosphorus content. The implementation of the newly developed biobased FR in finishing and coating of leather and textiles will be evaluated. According to their performance, different end applications are envisaged (leathers, outdoor textiles, indoor and technical textiles).Project consortiumCentexbel (Belgium), FILK e.V., (global coordinator, Germany) will be responsible for the management and dissemination of the results. Centexbel and FILK will perform the research. Target groupcoating / finishing companies (textile and leather)producers of FR/additivesproducers of ready-to-use FR formulationsResultsIn the BioFRLeTex project, biobased flame retardant (FR) formulations for textiles were developed. To this end, various bio-based raw materials were screened, such as proteins, phenolic acids and polyols. The FR performance was tested according to the fire tests ISO 15025, NFPA 701, M-classification and Cal 117. The best FR formulations achieved M1 classification but none of the formulations passed the Cal 117 test.In addition, bio-based FR from renewable raw materials such as vanillin, lignin, sorbitol, linseed oil and isosorbide were also synthesized. The biobased FR based on sorbitol and isosorbide were applied to cotton and were semi-permanent: after 5 wash cycles at 40°C treated cotton passed the ISO 15025 FR test. The FR based on vanillin, lignin and linseed oil were added to PU coating. The FR based on linseed oil had no FR effect, while PU coatings modified with FR based on vanillin and lignin passed the ISO 15025 test." "Decolorization of textile waste water, with an emphasis on microbial treatment processes" "Bart Lievens, Lise Appels" "Microbial and Plant Genetics (CMPG), Materials Technology, Group T Leuven Campus, Bioengineering Technology, Group T Leuven Campus, Chemical & Biochemical Process Technology & Control (BioTec+), Chemical and Biochemical Reactor Engineering and Safety (CREaS)" "Textile wastewater is typically intensely colored, containing high concentrations of dyes, dyeing additives and diverse chemicals, some of which are non-biodegradable and/or toxic, mutagenic or carcinogenic. Therefore, it is essential to treat textile wastewater in order to remove these substances before being discharged into the environment. Over the past few decades extensive research has been performed concerning dye removal from different wastewaters using chemical and biological treatment technologies or a combination of both. Nevertheless, only little is known about the microbial ecology and microbial communities in biological wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) treating textile wastewaters, and about the efficiency of these systems to remove recalcitrant dyes. In this PhD thesis, using reactive azo dyes as model components, several aspects were studied contributing to a better understanding of dye degradation and its removal from textile wastewater. Reactive azo dyes are an important group of toxic, recalcitrant textile dyes and represent the majority of all dyes used in the textile industry, and are therefore highly suited for this study.First, a number of available molecular tools were implemented and evaluated to assess the microbial community composition and some important gene functions in activated sludge from (textile) WWTPs (Chapter 2). More particularly, a molecular-ecological toolbox was developed, consisting of quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) protocols for monitoring abundance of bacterial and archaeal 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes as well as a number of functional genes involved in nitrogen removal through nitrification/denitrification. Additionally, a protocol based on 454 pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA gene amplicons was developed to assess the archaeal and bacterial community composition in activated sludge systems.Microbial communities of activated sludge in WWTPs have been profoundly studied over the past decade. However, despite these efforts still little is known about the microbial community composition and their functioning in activated sludge from textile wastewater treatment systems. Therefore, the aim of Chapter 3 was to study the microbial community in activated sludge from well-operating textile WWTPs in comparison with municipal WWTPs over two seasons (winter and summer), and to explain observed differences by environmental variables. In total, 454-pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA gene amplicons generated 160 archaeal and 1645 bacterial Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs, which are a surrogate for species). Results suggested that activated sludge from textile WWTPs harbors a microbial community which is different from those from municipal WWTPs. Both archaeal and bacterial richness were significantly higher for samples from municipal WWTPs compared to those from textile WWTPs. The bacterial phyla Planctomycetes, Chloroflexi, Chlorobi and Acidobacteria were more abundant in activated sludge samples from textile WWTPs, together with archaeal members of Thaumarchaeota. Additionally, sulfate-reducing bacteria were almost only detected in textile WWTPs, while nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria as well as phosphate-accumulation bacteria were more abundant in municipal WWTPs. It became also clear that microbial communities from textile WWTPs were more dissimilar than those of municipal WWTPs, possibly due to a wider diversity in environmental stresses to which microbial communities in textile WWTPs are subjected. High salinity, high organic loads and a higher water temperature were found as important variables driving the microbial community composition in textile WWTPs. In an attempt to assess how microbial communities in textile WWTPs are established, the response of activated sludge microbial communities when exposed to textile dyes was studied. To this end, we assessed the microbial community composition in activated sludge from municipal WWTPs before and after exposure to azo dyes (Reactive Violet 5 (RV5)) (Chapter 4). Molecular analysis revealed that microbial communities that become exposed to recalcitrant azo dyes shift from diverse communities towards less diverse communities harboring highly adapted taxa with azo dye-degrading activity.Many approaches have been proposed to remove dyes from textile wastewaters, including (physico)chemical and biological methods. A combination of a chemical method to obtain partial dye degradation followed by a biological treatment is believed to be a promising method for cost-effective decolorization of colored wastewater. Therefore, the aim of Chapter 4 was to develop and evaluate a combined method of partial Fenton oxidation and biological treatment using activated sludge for decolorization of azo dyes. Using RV5 as a model dye, color removal was significantly higher when the combined Fenton treatment/activated sludge method was used, as opposed to separate application of these treatment technologies. More specifically, pretreatment with Fenton’s reagent removed 52.9, 83.9 and 91.3 % of color from a 500 mg l-1 RV5 aqueous solution within 60 min when H2O2 concentrations of 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 mM were used, respectively. Subsequent biological treatment significantly enhanced the chemical treatment, with microbial decolorization removing 70.2 % of the remaining RV5 concentration, on average. No apparent lag phase was detected when the chemical and biological method were combined, suggesting that the dye compounds have been partially degraded to compounds readily usable by the sludge microorganisms.Instead of combining a biological with chemical treatment technology to enhance purification of textile wastewater, another alternative is the application of microorganisms with dye-degrading capabilities. Therefore, in Chapter 5 bacterial strains capable of decolorizing and/or degrading azo dyes commonly applied in textile production (monoazo dye Reactive Orange 16 and diazo dye Reactive Green 19) were isolated and characterized from activated sludge systems used in the treatment of (textile) wastewater. Following a prescreening of 125 isolates for their decolorization potential, five strains were retained for further evaluation of decolorization rate and effects of physicochemical parameters using a microtiter plate method. Of those five strains, one strain belonging to the genus Acinetobacter (ST16.16/164) and another belonging to Klebsiella (ST16.16/034) outperformed the other tested strains. Interestingly, it was suggested that this Acinetobacter strain represents a novel species, which is closely related to Acinetobacter johnsonii. Both strains exhibited strong decolorization ability (> 80 %) within a wide temperature range (20 °C to 40 °C) and retained good decolorization activity at temperatures as low as 10 °C (especially strain ST16.16/034), offering promising perspectives on a practical level, which requires a stable enzymatic performance of the isolates during the different phases of the purification cycle (thermotolerant). Among the different pH values tested (4, 7 and 10), highest dye removal for both strains occurred at pH 7, with decolorization efficiency remaining relatively high under alkaline conditions (pH 10), and neither isolates decolorization efficiency was negatively impacted by high salt or high dye concentration. Furthermore, both strains displayed the highest rate of decolorization and were able to completely (ST16.16/034) or partly (ST16.16/164) degrade the azo dyes.Altogether, this PhD thesis clearly increased our knowledge on the microbial ecology and microbial communities in textile WWTPs as well as the treatment of textile wastewaters. Eventually, this study should contribute to a more effective, feasible and sustainable treatment of dye contaminated wastewater." "SYSTEX-Coorination action for enhancing the breakthrough of intelligent textile systems (e-textiles and wearable Microsystems)" "Lieva Van Langenhove" "Department of Materials, Textiles and Chemical Engineering" "Wearable electronics embedded in or transformed into textile systems are a new generation of products that contribute to economy as well as to society. SYSTEX wants to bring partners involved in European projects in this area together in order to group the results of numerous efforts that are currently going on. It wants to merge textiles and organic electronics. Inter-project agreements must enable a higher level of exchange of knowledge and materials between linked projects. Information on technical and non technical aspects of RTD and commercialization of intelligent textile systems will be collected and made available through a web based tool. Training materials will be collected as well as demonstrators that can be used for specialists as well as for a wider public. The project wants to become a single point of contact for all matters related to intelligent textile systems, linking existing initiatives and completing their activities." "Textile Reinforced Cementitious Composites for a High-performance, Fire-Resistant Sustainable Building System." "Bart Blanpain" "Sustainable Materials Processing and Recycling (SeMPeR)" "The overall goal is to develop textile reinforcing cement matrix composites (Textile Reinforced Cementitious Composites (TRC)) and structures in this material that are high-performance, cost-effective and ecological." "Quality improvement of textile composites by characterisation of the spatial variability in the mechanical properties." "Dirk Vandepitte" "Production Engineering, Machine Design and Automation (PMA) Section, Structural Composites and Alloys, Integrity and Nondestructive Testing" "The advantages of using composites for design, manufacturing and duringoperation are well known. Besides a lower weight for the same or an enhanced performance, this new type of material further reduces maintenancecosts and enables a full integration of individual parts for aeronautical components. In automotive, composite materials are even crucial to realise the upcoming regulations in further reducing the CO2 exhaust gases. Though, the introduction of composites is hampered by the relatively high cost of raw material and the uncertain quality of high-performance composite structures. In order to assure the design requirements, high safety factors and strict manufacturing tolerances are enforced that hinder composites to be a competitive material for design.  An improved assessment of the quality of any composite part isachieved by identifying the irregularity in the tow reinforcement. The variability in macroscopic performance is dominated by the randomness inthe geometrical characteristics at the lower scale, especially for textile products. However, no evident step in this direction has been made over the past decades. Sources of variability remain poorly understood and computational methods are lacking for building representative numerical models. The majority of the state-of-the-art restricts to local features, without regarding the spatial dependency of tow path parameters at different locations. In addition, due to the lack of measured data, researchers content themselves with assumptions on the input distribution andcorrelation functions, which lead to incorrect estimates of the actual limits of material properties. The next step in this development should consist in a modelling approach that introduces scatter at the differentlevels and is calibrated with experimental work.  This dissertation provides a multi-scale framework for generating realistic virtual textile specimens. A roadmap is provided to characterise the spatial scatter in the internal structure of any textile composite andsimulate random models possessing the measured statistical information on average. Therefore, it is a first step towards a systematic modellingapproach for textile composites where powerful simulation procedures are applied in combination with experimental data. This contribution complies with the industrial interest of virtual testing towards first time right. High-fidelity simulations are gaining ever more importance and decisions are increasingly pursued based on simulation results, demonstrating the need for instruments such as realistic models. Virtual textile specimens with random reinforcement are acquired in three main steps. First, an experimental methodology is presented to characterise the geometrical variability in terms of the centroid coordinates and cross-sectional parameters on the short-range (meso-scale) and long-range (macro-scale).  Non-destructive state-of-the-art inspection techniques such as X-ray micro-computed tomography, optical imaging or digital image correlation are applied to measure the fabric architecture in a reliable and efficient way across the composite volume. Theinherent scatter of each tow path parameter in each tow direction is quantified in terms of an average trend, standard deviation and correlation length by applying the reference period collation method. Secondly, a stochastic multi-scale modelling approach is developed to reproduce the measured variation in the tow reinforcement within the unit cell and between neighbouring unit cells. Random instances of tow paths are acquiredby combining the deduced average trends with generated zero-mean fluctuations possessing the experimental standard deviation and correlation lengths on average. Zero-mean deviations which are only correlated along the tow path are produced by the Monte Carlo Markov Chain for textile structures, while uncertain quantities that are dependent along and betweentow paths are generated using the cross-correlated Series Expansion method. In the last step, virtual composite specimens with random fibre architecture are created in the WiseTex format by an intrusive approach. Nominal tow path descriptions are overwritten with realistic tow representations obtained from the previous step, while preserving the original fibre mechanics and matrix properties. This framework is demonstrated for a carbon-epoxy 2/2 twill woven composite produced by resin transfer moulding. Substantial differences in tow path information are observed for warp and weft direction attributed to the manufacturing process of the weave. A good correspondence is obtained for the experimentaland simulated deviations trends in terms of wavelengths of the centrelines and extreme values for all tow properties." "Bio-based latex for textile and paper applications" "Biobased biobased latex latex texiel and paper applications. IWT R & D 130 669"