{"id":885528,"date":"2025-12-05T16:52:38","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T16:52:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.electronicsweekly.com\/?p=885528"},"modified":"2025-12-08T12:05:36","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T12:05:36","slug":"iron-on-electronics-for-fabrics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.electronicsweekly.com\/news\/research-news\/iron-on-electronics-for-fabrics-2025-12\/","title":{"rendered":"Iron-on electronics for fabrics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers at Virginia Tech have combined liquid metal and a heat-activated adhesive to create an electrically conductive patch that bonds to fabric when heated with a hot iron.<\/p><div class=\"elect-content\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; \" id=\"elect-1755908141\"><div id=\"x02\">\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"> if ($(window).width() <= 768) { googletag.display('x02'); } <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n<p><a rel=\"image\" href=\"https:\/\/static.electronicsweekly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/05162819\/Virginia-Tech-iron-on-flexible-circuit-Credit-Applied-Materials-Interfaces-DOI-10.1021-acsami.5c13752.webp\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-885529\" src=\"https:\/\/static.electronicsweekly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/05162819\/Virginia-Tech-iron-on-flexible-circuit-Credit-Applied-Materials-Interfaces-DOI-10.1021-acsami.5c13752-300x211.webp\" alt=\"Virginia Tech iron on flexible circuit Credit Applied Materials Interfaces DOI 10.1021 acsami.5c13752\" width=\"300\" height=\"211\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.electronicsweekly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/05162819\/Virginia-Tech-iron-on-flexible-circuit-Credit-Applied-Materials-Interfaces-DOI-10.1021-acsami.5c13752-300x211.webp 300w, https:\/\/static.electronicsweekly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/05162819\/Virginia-Tech-iron-on-flexible-circuit-Credit-Applied-Materials-Interfaces-DOI-10.1021-acsami.5c13752.webp 512w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>&#8220;E-textiles and wearable electronics can enable diverse applications from health care and environmental monitoring to robotics and human-machine interfaces,&#8221; said Virginia Tech engineer Michael Bartlett. &#8220;Our work advances this by creating iron-on soft electronics that can be robustly integrated into fabrics.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The key element is a mixture of gallium-indium alloy liquid metal droplets and polyurethane rubber.<\/p><div class=\"elect-post-content-2\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; \" id=\"elect-1894126362\"><div id=\"DFP-EW-InRead1-Mobile\">\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"> if ($(window).width() <= 768) { googletag.display('DFP-EW-InRead1-Mobile'); } <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div><div class=\"elect-test\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; \" id=\"elect-1317776415\"><div id=\"DFP-EW-InRead1\">\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"> if ($(window).width() > 768) { googletag.display('DFP-EW-InRead1'); } <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<BR>\r\n<\/div>\n<p>Poured onto a surface and air dried for a day, it forms a soft, electrically-conductive elastic sheet.<\/p>\n<p>This is cut up into lengths that will become conductors, and it is these that have been ironed-on to various fabrics.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The polymer in the conductive patches created strong bonds with the fibers, keeping the layers together once they cooled,&#8221; according to the university.<\/p>\n<p>In one technology demonstrator (pictured), the university&#8217;s logo was ironed onto fabric with five LEDs &#8211; LEDs that continued to operate when the fabric was repeatedly folded, twisted and stretched.<\/p>\n<p>Another fed power into, and signals out of, microphone within a shirt.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The ironed-on microphone recorded sound across the full human hearing range with performance comparable to a traditional microphone setup, and with less noticeable bulk,&#8221; said the university.<\/p>\n<p>The work is described in &#8216;<a rel=\"image\" href=\"https:\/\/pubs.acs.org\/doi\/10.1021\/acsami.5c13752\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Iron-On Wearable Electronics through Liquid Metal Adhesive Composites<\/a>&#8216;, published in ACS Applied Materials &amp; Interfaces, from where the image was copied with permission.<\/p>\n<p>Image credit: Adapted from Applied Materials &amp; Interfaces 2025, DOI: 10.1021\/acsami.5c13752<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers at Virginia Tech have combined liquid metal and a heat-activated adhesive to create an electrically conductive patch that bonds to fabric when heated with a hot iron. &#8220;E-textiles and &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":885529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12658],"tags":[13758,13337,14168,13668],"class_list":["post-885528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-news","tag-conductor","tag-fabric","tag-flexible","tag-research"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.7 (Yoast SEO v27.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Iron-on electronics for fabrics | Electronics Weekly<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Researchers at Virginia Tech have combined liquid metal and a heat-activated adhesive to create an electrically conductive patch that bonds to fabric when\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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