Using graphene as a smart garment, is it a cannon to fight mosquitoes or to find another way?

Since 2010, when physicists Andrei Heim and Professor Konstantin Novoselov have won the Nobel Prize in Physics, graphene has become a new material that has attracted worldwide attention. Ren Zhengfei predicted that in the next 10 to 20 years, the graphene era will subvert the silicon era.

Graphene is one of the thinnest, strongest, and most conductive nano-materials found in fuel cells, flexible screens, and automotive, aircraft, and satellite manufacturing. However, a company called Aika Aijia Technology wanted to apply graphene to the textile industry with the intention of creating smarter clothing.

At present, the application of graphene is divided into heavy application and light application. Heavy application requires a large amount of capital investment and long-term development, so that the traditional materials such as graphene in batteries and semiconductors are fundamentally replaced by graphene single-layer atomic advantages. Applications in the field of chips, etc., but such applications are limited by the current technology and production cannot be quickly popularized, and most of them remain in the laboratory stage. The light application of graphene is for civilian use, which can be quickly realized and can bring high cost performance to consumers, such as graphene heating and filtration.

Aika Aijia Technology chose to apply graphene to the textile field and valued the good thermal conductivity of graphene. Aika Aijia founder and CEO Chen Lijun told 36æ°ª that the electrothermal conversion efficiency of graphene can reach 99%, and other Compared with the hair material, it has an absolute advantage. Secondly, the traditional resistance wire heats up, and it is prone to short-circuit fire, unsafe water and electricity, and low human comfort.

Aika Aijia Technology embeds graphene into the fiber structure, and the woven fabric can support a safe voltage of 3.7V, and can control the heating rate and temperature through APP according to the situation. In terms of user experience, safety and comfort are enhanced. In addition to the fast heating rate, it is superior to carbon fiber and electric resistance wire in terms of heat uniformity and heat generation efficiency. As a graphene textile, the soft, not afraid of folding and washable characteristics are superior.

Then there are two problems with this, the first is cost, and the second is craft.

Although the price of graphene plummeted in 2015, it is still a luxury compared to other textile materials. If a wide range of applications are on clothes, cost is a problem that must be considered.

Chen Lijun told 36 æ°ª that Aika Aijia Technology has been researched and developed, and 1 gram of graphene can be woven into the fabric of 2,630 square meters, so that the cost is evenly negligible.

In terms of technology, Aika Aijia Technology has cooperated with top research institutions such as the Graphene Institute of the University of Manchester, the Changzhou Advanced Materials Research Institute of Beijing University of Chemical Technology, and the Beijing Research Institute of New Materials and Industrial Technology, and has obtained more than ten patents.

But how do you add smart clothing to graphene? Chen Lijun said that only special people have demand for wearing equipment, such as the elderly, outdoor special jobs. He believes that the future of smart clothing entry point is "fever", the essence of clothes is to keep out the cold, this is hard just needed.

In addition to the deep integration of graphene and textiles, Aika Aijia Technology has also independently developed a graphene textile sensor that can be directly attached to the fabric, combined with smart wear, can collect, excavate and pass data to the human body. Carry out health management and intelligent services.

At the end of 2015, Aika Aijia independently developed a “graphene smart shawl” with heating function to land in Jingdong crowdfunding, and finally ended up with an amount of 5.19 million, and nearly 6,000 people participated in the event. This shawl uses graphene as a heat carrier, temperature control through APP, 5V safe voltage supply, easy to use, safe and controllable.

Aika Aijia Technology received a Pre-A round of financing of 10 million RMB from Essence Securities and Bauhinia Angel in 2015. For the next step, Aika plans to use technology products such as graphene material modification, intelligent acquisition, and big data to rapidly export products. Turn. Since the production of graphene garments has very high technical requirements for garment enterprises, Chen Lijun predicts that it will take five years if the technology is transferred to the civilian heating apparel industry.

Nowadays, the environment of the graphene industry is hot and impetuous, and the concept speculation is mostly. Last year, graphene industry stocks soared, and this year it fell back due to oversupply in the market. This allows us to see the serious lack of downstream applications, there is still a lot of room for industrial applications. Although graphene is used to make the fabric feel a little cannon to fight mosquitoes, it is a new application of graphene under the premise that other heavy applications are also formed.