I-Corps: Photonic Fiber Barcodes for Integrated Textile Traceability and Sorting

这个i-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是为纺织品、鞋类和其他产品开发一个不可磨灭的标签系统。拟议技术的目标是实现身份验证、制造生命周期跟踪，并提高分类效率，以便在生命周期结束时重复使用、维修或回收。目前超过85%的纺织品最终被送往垃圾填埋场，尽管最近的一项研究表明，74%的低价值、消费后纺织品可以随时用于纤维到纤维的回收利用，到2028年，回收纺织品的市场预计将达到100亿美元。实施纤维到纤维回收的一个关键挑战是原料含糊不清。超过29%的消费后服装没有清晰的护理标签，而41%的标签不准确。为了在国内和世界范围内实现纺织品的功能循环经济，以及相关的积极社会影响，需要一个功能强大的标签和追踪系统。除了缺乏报废管理造成的纺织废物问题外，还有非法进口假冒商品的挑战，据估计，这会给美国员工造成336亿美元的工资和福利损失，以及每年72亿美元的税收损失。这个i-Corps项目是基于一种全有机、可回收的纤维的开发，这种纤维在制造过程中直接集成到织物或服装中，具有工程设计的光子签名，以提供不可磨灭的标签。建议的技术可在销售点和回收设施使用手持和高通量光学分拣系统进行阅读。在服装行业，产品生命周期管理在一定程度上受到不准确、可读性差和可拆卸的标准护理标签的阻碍。相反，该项目寻求实现一种能够集成到织物本身中的标签系统，该系统本质上是可回收的、低成本、编码信息，并允许在正常使用多年后快速读出。在这项工作中，设计了全聚合物光子晶体，然后通过热拉伸法制备了100层，具有亚微米的单独厚度和低折射率对比度，使得能够在可见光和红外波长产生独特的光学特征。光纤的光学设计还允许使用泛音峰值，以避免与寄生分子吸收重叠，从而显著提高读出的信噪比(因此，容易和速度)。生产与现有纺织品制造工艺兼容的千米纤维的能力，加上低投入材料成本，使拟议的技术成为标准护理标签的潜在市场可行改进。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of an indelible labelling system for textiles, footwear, and other products. The goal of the proposed technology is to enable authentication, manufacturing life cycle tracing, and enhance sorting efficiency for reuse, repair, or recycling at the end-of-life. Over 85% of textiles currently end up in landfills, despite a recent study indicating 74% of low-value, post-consumer textiles are readily available for fiber-to-fiber recycling and the expected market for recycled textiles to be $10 billion by 2028. A key challenge in implementing fiber-to-fiber recycling is feedstock ambiguity. Over 29% of post-consumer clothing lacks a legible care label, while 41% have inaccurate labels. To realize a functional circular economy for textiles domestically and worldwide, and the associated positive social impacts, a functional, robust labeling and tracing system is required. In addition to the issue of textile waste created by lack of end-of-life management, there also is the challenge of illegal import of counterfeit goods, which is estimated to cost $33.6 billion in wages and benefits to employees in the US, and $7.2 billion in lost tax revenue every year. This I-Corps project is based on the development of an all-organic, recyclable fiber directly integrated into a fabric or garment during manufacture that has an engineered photonic signature to provide an indelible label. The proposed technology is readable using both hand-held and high-throughput optical sorting systems at point-of-sale and recycling facilities. In the apparel industry, product life cycle management is hampered, in part, by inaccurate, poorly readable, and detachable standard care labels. Instead, this project seeks to enable a labeling system capable of being integrated into the fabric itself, that is intrinsically recyclable, low-cost, encodes information, and allows rapid readout after years of normal use. In this work, all-polymer photonic crystals are designed and then fabricated by thermal drawing with 100 layers having sub-micrometer individual thickness and low refractive index contrast, enabling the creation of unique optical signatures at visible and infrared wavelengths. The fibers’ optical design also enables the use of overtone peaks to avoid overlap with parasitic molecular absorption, substantially improving the signal-to-noise ratio (and, therefore, ease and speed) of readout. The ability to produce kilometers of fiber that are compatible with existing textile manufacturing processes, coupled with low input material cost, make the proposed technology a potential market-viable improvement over the standard care label.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.