Photovoltaic textiles consisting of fiber-shaped organic photovoltaic cells provide power for diverse electronic devices including flexible and wearable devices. In the present study, fiber-shaped organic photovoltaic cells with an inverted polymer-fullerene bulk-heterojunction structure were successfully fabricated by solution processing of all functional layers under ambient conditions. The transparent resin coating greatly enhanced the photovoltaic performance and the sealed photovoltaic fibers showed an electrical power output up to 4.6 and 0.14 mW/cm² under the sunlight and indoor light irradiation conditions. In addition,the coated fibers were stably woven into textiles. The obtained photovoltaic textiles showed excellent flexibility and foldability in addition to power generation characteristics. These results have opened up the possibility of development of flexible, lightweight, low-cost, and scalable fiber-based organic photovoltaic textiles.

In current care facilities, bed-leaving sensors are used to prevent patients from falling at night. However, since these sensors normally detect the movement of a patient who has left the bed, when the sensor responds to the movement, the patient has already moved, and sometimes this means that he/she has already fallen from the bed. Since it is theoretically impossible to use the existing sensors for the purpose of preventing fall accidents, we focused on the relationship between sleeping positions and awakening timings. It is well known that people change posture frequently while sleeping. In this study, we focused on the frequency of change in sleeping posture, in order to verify which postures closely related to awakening timings. In consideration of the privacy of the care recipient, we have studied and developed a method to detect changes in posture while sleeping by deep learning technology using data obtained from a sheet-type pressuresensitive sensor.

ITRIʼs unique clothing, iSmartwear, incorporates washable technology and breaks the mold of traditionally tight, uncomfortable, clothing that not only has poor heat dissipation, weak endurance, but also lower sensor sensitivity. iSmartweaR is ITRIʼs truly practical solution to address the problem of correct detection of vital sign signals from the body of a smart clothing wearer. It incurs virtually no negative issue in comfort and convenience at all.

Various technologies have to be integrated in developing “Smart Textiles”, and we believe SHIMA SEIKI has highly potential skills in processing the “Smart textiles” through the sophisticated knitting processing technologies. Measurement of vital sign is one of the most popular application of the smart textiles. Through the remarkable growth in so-called IoT technology, the infrastructure for the device has almost been prepared for the commercially available and dally use. Further, the conductive material fiber which can be handled by our flat knitting machine has also been growing in recent several years, such as metal plated fiber,ultra-thin metallic wire, etc. SHIMA SEIKI developed the seam-free WHOLEGARMENT^® manufacturing process that can produce an entire garment directly on the knitting machine.

A new type of paper, which composition is mixed of PLA and cellulose, was developed through heat molding process in this study. After folding of paper, this high performance paper contained thermoplastic PLA can be molded by heating and produced to the crafts. The properties of paper before and after the heating were examined and the results demonstrated their characteristics with high performance. In particular, the folding test showed that the developed paper was folded easily by hand. From the results of heat shrinkage test, it was also shown that the heat shrinkage ratio of the paper was suppressed by mixing cellulose. When PLA fiber content is lower than 60 wt%, heat shrinkage of the paper does not occur after heating. The results of tensile tests showed that heating increases the tensile strength of the paper and the tensile strength reaches the maximum value at 20 wt% PLA content.

In this study, an attempt was made to synthesize phenylcarbamoyl chitosan (PC-Cts) via complexation of chitosan with surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). SDS-chitosan complex was prepared simply by mixing acid solutions of chitosan and SDS. The complex was then reacted with phenyl isocyanate in dimethyl sulfoxide to yield PC-Cts. The molecular structures of the products were characterized by ¹H NMR spectroscopy. In ¹H NMR spectra of product samples, resonance signals characteristic of phenylcarbamoyl groups appeared together with those of chitosan. From this result, it was reasonably suggested that phenylcarbamoylation of chitosan was achieved by the procedure employed in this study. The ¹H NMR data were also used to determine the substitution parameters, including degree of substitution (DS), molar substitution (MS), degree of polymerization in the side chains (DP_S), and residual SDS content. The parameters varied with changes in reaction conditions. From these molecular characterization, the reaction pathway was proposed.

Cellulose nanofiber (CNF) has recently emerged as a promising new bio-nanomaterial. Typically, a dispersion of CNFs with a high water content is prepared by chemical and/or mechanical treatment. A rapid water removing method of the CNF dispersion should be developed for its use. In this study, a new method to concentrate the CNF dispersion was investigated by using osmosis with a sucrose solution. This method achieved a concentration of 1 wt％ dispersion of CNF into 19 wt％. The sucrose was also present in the concentrated CNF dispersion after osmosis. The concentration rate at 50 ̊C was higher than that at 23 ̊C. The concentration depended on the cutoff size of the molecular weight for the porous membrane. The porous membrane with a low-molecular-weight cutoff suppressed the amount of sucrose in the concentrated CNF dispersion, and increased the maximum CNF concentration of the CNF dispersion after osmosis.