Ep. 39: Technical textiles to grow significantly in near future Ankit Podcast

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Ep. 39: Technical textiles to grow significantly in near future

Professor Parikshit Goswami, founder of the University of Huddersfield’s Technical Textile Research Centre, gives his insight on what’s happening in the world of technical textiles.

Jessica Owen
Hello. My name is Jessica Owen, and I am the Deputy Digital Editor at WTIN, and this is the WTI N podcast. As most events have been cancelled this year thanks to COVID 19 the World Textile Information Network has decided to host its first virtual trade show to keep the textile and apparel industry connected. The innovate Textile and Apparel virtual trade show will take place between the 15th and 30th of October, and the event will feature manufacturers of textile technology as diverse as man made fiber production through to garment assembly, alongside material producers for apparel, sportswear, personal protective equipment through to smart fabrics and more, in order to get a taste of What has been happening, specifically in the world of materials today, I am joined by Dr Parikshit Goswami, who is the founder of the University of Huddersfield Technical Textile Research Center. In this special episode, Parikshit gives his insight on so many things, from PPE to smart textiles and to sustainability, but above all, he recognizes the need for collaboration with the industry and how technical textiles are at the heart of how to solve many of today's problems. So let's get on with the show. Well, hello and welcome Parikshit, and it's lovely to have you on the WTIN podcast today. So thank you very much for joining me. Thank you very much. So I've asked you on the show today so that we can talk about what's going on in the world of materials and innovation. As I know you're somewhat of a guru when it comes to technical textiles, but before we get going, could you just tell me a bit about yourself and why exactly it is that you do at the University of Huddersfield.

Professor Parikshit Goswami
Sure. I'll start not from University of Huddersfield, just to give a background, I'll start slightly before that, I did my PhD from Leeds, and then worked a long time in Leeds. When I left Leeds in 2017 I was Director of Research and Innovation and School of Design University of Leeds. And after that, I joined Huddersfield as the head of fashion and textiles. And last year, I can't remember the date, but last year, I formally open the Technical Textile Research Center, which is in line with with I'm a professor of technical textiles, and I think this is one area that will grow significantly in UK and Europe. So my whole concentration for the last few years was to develop this area, this research area, so that we can bridge a few different things, right, academia with industry, but as well as the civic society, so that we know what regulations are coming, what policies are coming, And we can direct our research in a way that we can help the industry and the bigger society. So that is my role, and that is what I am doing. After joining HUD, I am also the head of fashion and textiles, so I have those kind of administrative cap which I'm passionate about, actually, but research wise, technical textile is my area, right?

Jessica Owen
Well, it sounds like you've got a very varied job. Then. I mean, is textiles and fashion something you've always been interested in since a child, or where did that sort of Spark come from?

Professor Parikshit Goswami
Probably, yes, because I'm born and brought up in India, and I'm actually born and brought up in a city called Calcutta, where there used to be a huge jute industry. So I guess, yes, that was always there. But the passion really started when I started my undergraduate studies and when I eventually started in Leeds as well, the passion towards research grown. I realized that textiles can be defined in various ways. Right? Textile is not only for fashion. Textiles. If you take a step back and think about textiles, it is everywhere, right from your car to the airplane you are traveling, medical implants, wound dressing so you can have aspiration to work in any applied field, almost any applied field, and at some point in your career, you will bump into textiles. And that is where the passion started, when I realized what is the real footprint of textiles in our life?

Jessica Owen
Yeah, I have to admit what. I first started this job, and people started saying to me, you'll learn about diapers and sanitary products and non wovens. Obviously, that's that area, and all these other things in the automotive industry. I was like, I think I was oblivious to how big a role textiles actually does play in our lives. But like you just said, it's just absolutely everywhere. So, I mean, there's no wonder. There's so much research and development going into it these days,

Professor Parikshit Goswami
absolutely, if you want, I'll give you one example, right, what textile can do, just to highlight the point we are discussing, what is the footprint of textiles means we, probably every one of us, know somebody who have chronic kidney disease, and they go for dialysis. Now there are around 150 different kind of toxins in your blood that dialysis need to remove at this moment, dialysis can remove some water bound molecules, some middle molecules, but they can't remove protein bound macromolecules. The solution might as well lie in textiles. So that we develop filters, we are very good in developing filters, air, water, liquid filters, and the solution might lie in us, developing filters which can stratify or individualize different toxins out of that 150 and remove them from blood. Now that is one side where we are using textiles in medical interventions. On the other side, we have projects with India where we are removing arsenic from water, and anything in between is textiles and technical textiles. 

Jessica Owen
Gosh, yeah, it's a very varied industry, isn't it, and it's doing some remarkable things these days as well. So let's talk about the technical textile research center then that you opened up last year at Huddersfield University. So what is the aim of this center? Then exactly. I mean, you mentioned it briefly at the beginning, but if you could just tell me a bit more, that'd be great, absolutely

Professor Parikshit Goswami
Now, see, it is much easier for me to answer this question now post COVID 19, right? Because COVID 19 categorically showed us why our technical textile industry is important in UK. We have seen what happened with PPE, and we realized that we don't have the supply chain to make the products in UK, and that is what the agenda was when we formed the technical textile Research Center, it was a holistic approach, where we thought that will bring academia close to the industry as well as policy making, right. And that was the agenda, so that we can actually, we will always do fundamental research in a university setup. But the point, the objective of technical textile Research Center was very practical so that we understand the supply chain, we understand the requirement, we understand the policy. And I can give you examples of many policies where our research is directed to cater the policy. So it was a practical center meant for, for the wider society, for the industry around us, and to serve their purpose. Does that make sense? Means I can go on the whole day about the center, but

Jessica Owen
you put you put it really nicely there, actually. And I think I one of my questions today was gonna was going to focus on sort of the link between the academic industry and what's going on in the commercial side of things. I mean, for example, is there enough people, enough students these days getting into technical textiles? Or is it quite or are we sort of lacking that skill? 

Professor Parikshit Goswami
We are we are significantly lacking that skill because and, and I'll say, as an industry, we need to develop a communication strategy with with younger people, right as as I'll go back to what you said right when you joined this job, or when I started my higher education before that, I had no idea what technical textiles can do, what textile is used for. Now, if we communicate that along with the availability of jobs in this area, because we have more skills requirement then the skills are available. That translates into more jobs, right? So if we, if we communicate how interesting this area is, how diverse this area is to everybody, then probably we'll get students. But at this point, we. Uh, it is lacking because, because we are seriously not communicating this well to prospective students how exciting this area is. And you know what, Jessica, it is a joint responsibility between us and yourself to communicate that. Does that make sense? It does. Yeah, totally. Because you will see that in many of the technical textile departments, we have a master's program. We have a very good population in PhD programs, but we really don't have a feeder undergraduate program in technical textiles. So many of the inputs, intakes that we have, sorry for that in Masters or PhD program, sometimes they come from other fields, from chemistry, from biology, even from fashion, which is good, because that totally cross fertilizes the subject area, but we need to develop our own students from undergraduate education. Yes, that is lacking,

Jessica Owen
okay. I mean, so just tell me about some a couple of the things that you've been focusing on at this center this year in particular. I mean, you mentioned COVID 19. I mean, have you been working a lot on PPE, or what other things have been really interesting at the moment? 

Professor Parikshit Goswami
Yes, means PPE is a good example, right? Obviously, means Jessica, you will understand that I have to be very measured in answering this question, due to commercial confidentiality and stuff like that. Whatever we are doing, whenever there is a commercial sensitivity, we can't discuss that openly, but, but I'll still try to answer this question, right and and I'll try to say how diverse technical textiles is. Now I'll articulate that with two examples. We are part of a project which is called the future, future fashion factory. Have you heard about that? I have Yes. So it is a project between Royal College, Royal College of Art, University of Huddersfield and University of Leeds. We are part of that project. I am a co investigator in that project. At the same time, I have another project which is called a grow med tech, which is a collaboration between six universities, and it is on medical technologies, right? So from fashion to medical we are covering everything in our group. I will specifically answer the PPE question. There are sudden standards for PPE. For example, there is a standard called en 149 which measures, for example, the efficiency of the filters against NaCl and para film, oil penetration, so on and so forth. We are not only working to develop new material for those standards, but we are critically talking with agencies to think about the standards itself, in the present context, how they work. Now for if I stick with en 149 there is kind of only one material that is good enough to pass that standard, and that is called the melt bone polypropylene, which is charged. So we are doing product development. We are also talking with the civic society to say, for example, if en 149, is the right METI is the right kind of mask for the intended purpose. So, and we are also concentrating on the supply chain. So we are actually trying to give a very holistic solution to the industry, not just doing R and D. We are going beyond that. We are creating a micro environment, a ecosystem where everybody, every stakeholder Can, can come and contribute towards serving the society. By the way, I should make it clear that I'm not claiming and I'll never do that, that I'm the only person who is doing that. We have brilliant colleagues in Manchester, in Leeds, and we know how to collaborate, and that is the best part. And we know that to serve the society, we all need to come together. And you know what? In textiles, we are actually doing that. We are bringing everybody together, and we are working together for the better benefit of the society.

Jessica Owen
Well, this idea of collaboration was something I wanted to talk to you about today, because a lot of people, especially because of COVID as well. I've realized that the industry, well, not just textiles, but every industry. In order to survive, you do need to rely on help and the knowledge of others in order to grow and to succeed. So I mean, the textile industries, do you think that's a lot better these days than maybe it once was absolutely mean.

Professor Parikshit Goswami
But let, let's go back to the to one of the project well, to our subject area, right? Say, for example, medical textiles. If we are, for example, working on kidney dialysis, there is no way that a person can know everything about textiles, about the physiological aspects about biology. So to do real, meaningful solution, it is all about collaboration. You need the biologist to come in a room. You need a medical practitioner, a clinician to come in the room, a material expert to come in the room. And you need to work together. Now it is easier said than done, because our communication is very different. Our language is very different. And over the times, with right intention, we learn how to communicate with people from other disciplines, and that is the fundamental aspect of collaboration is to find a common language. Does that make sense?

Jessica Owen
It does Yes. And, and if you don't mind, I want to stay with that idea, actually, because I wanted to ask you today about some of the wider sort of technical textile industry and the trends that are going on. So for example, if we think of smart textiles, which is quite a, quite a big emerging industry. I mean, collaboration is key there, because you're drawing in people from electronics and material innovation. So, I mean, what, what do you think of that industry? I mean, have you seen anything that's really interesting and noteworthy? There

Professor Parikshit Goswami
a lot, a lot. But when we say smart textiles, Mar textile will also go through a process of evaluation, right? Not evaluation. What's the word? I'm looking for evolution. Evolution, sorry for that, right? What I mean is, at this moment, yes, you rightly pointed out electronic textiles, right? But you know, electronic textiles can be used for drug delivery, for example. It can be used for a lot of medical intervention as well as other kind of thing, not just measuring your heart rate. It can be used for product development. It can be used for so many different applications. And in the next decade or so, you will see a lot of applications of smart textiles in a completely different light. Absolutely, this area will expand, but it will take different shapes and forms, and that is where we are working at this moment to find not thinking smart textile as an application, but finding new applications through the concept of smart textiles,

Jessica Owen
right? Okay, and is this anything that you ever work with, or is this sort of outside of your area of expertise?

Professor Parikshit Goswami
No, we work here a lot in this area. Means, if you want to do technical textiles, you can't avoid smart textiles, right? Obviously, the definition of smart textile varies between people, right? We are still trying to find the right definition of smart textiles. For me, if you can functionalize textiles so that it can change to external stimuli, whatever that stimuli might be this smart, right? It can be passive smart smartness, active smartness. It's a complicated area which will grow over the next decade or so. The definitions will change the perspective of smart textiles with change so on and so forth. And I strongly feel that

Jessica Owen
that's interesting, actually, because, yeah, when it, for example, my job, when you write up an article, it's very tricky to get the terminology correct, because someone might say smart textiles, but technically it's probably more of an electronic textile. And then you'll have other things that do these passive things, others that are more active. And so it's really difficult to sort of get your head around all the different ways in which smart textiles, I guess, is just more of the umbrella term these days. But I mean, is there anything that's really caught your eye recently in this area?

Professor Parikshit Goswami
No, but Jessica, I must say you got it right. I must say that what you said, you totally got it right. Because, say, for example, right. We have projects here where we are using nanotechnology for different purposes. One application might be even to understand when cracks happened on concrete right, which can be used as a sensing device for earthquakes and stuff like that. Will you not call it smart? Of course, that is smart. Right without, without our electronic device associated with it, so that the real problem is smart is not the definition of smart textiles will change in the next decade, and everything we are doing, from wound dressing to medical textiles to textiles for architecture or civil engineering. They are smart in their own way. The definition varies, but they are smart in their own way. And you, you actually got it, so you should do a PhD with me,

Jessica Owen
maybe one day, maybe if I have a change of heart,

Professor Parikshit Goswami
absolutely.

Jessica Owen
But I mean, with smart textiles, then, I mean, you said it's going to change in the next decade or so. Do you think it's likely that consumers are going to start adopting smart technology? Do you think it will become a part of our daily routines, as say, the iPhone now is,

Professor Parikshit Goswami
yes. I'll not predict it. I'll say I'm sure that the consumer will adopt it. Consumer will know that it is smart textiles or not. That is a different question altogether, right? How to put it, say, for example, right? The consumers are already using smart textiles, right? Smart textiles are in your car when you are driving a car. Smart textiles are there. Smart textiles are everywhere, but consumers might not always be appreciative of that. There are so many applications with nano technology that consumers are using but they might not be appreciative of that. Think about antimicrobial textiles, right? Consumers are using it, right? Probably consumers don't think about the science, and they're rightly so everybody can't think about everything, then we'll be out of job. But consumers know the functionality. They don't know how the functionality is achieved, and that is where the smartness lies, right?

Jessica Owen
Well, actually, I'd quite like to stick with that, because, for example, you're saying there, not everyone is aware, or has that awareness, of maybe what everything can do for them. And COVID 19, if we circle back to that, I think it's only now that people are appreciating what surgical textiles and what antibacterial finishes can do for them. So for example, I don't know my mum might go and buy an antibacterial face mask, and it's only now because of COVID 19 actually really appreciates what that technology is there to do

Professor Parikshit Goswami
absolutely. And I will even critically question that. I will even critically say, do the consumer know always that which mask they are buying? What is the standard of that mask? What is that mask supposed to do. There are two standards. Right one is en 149, for particulate filtration. There is another standard called en 14683, for surgical mask. The consumers are not supposed to know what is the difference between them. It is our responsibility to communicate that to the consumer, to some extent, in a way that they understand the difference, they can make the right choice. You can't give them 200 page document to decide which mask to buy. It is our communication strategy that will govern that. 

Jessica Owen
Well, that's interesting because, I mean, we could talk about COVID 19 and smart textiles, and that probably for much longer. But another thing that I wanted to talk about was sustainability. And what you've said there about it's our it's our role to communicate what something does or how it can help you. I think that goes with sustainability as well, because I don't think a lot of consumers are maybe aware of what their of what, how bad their clothes are, like this idea of Fast, fast fashion and so on, and so, I guess it's there's been a some debate recently as to whether it should be the retailers responsibility to make better clothing that's more sustainable, whether it's actually the consumer to consume less and can to consume better. I mean, what's your thought on this whole sustainability topic that's in full swing at the moment? 

Professor Parikshit Goswami
Where to Start see sustainability is something that is getting more matured these days, right? And it is policy driven, because if you see the plastic pack in UK, so plastic pack bins by 2025, I think one of the objective is to either recycle, repurpose or reuse every plastic waste, and 70% of them needs to be either compostable or recycled right now, those kind of. Uh, policy making interventions is making sustainability more real. You have single use plastic directive in you as well. But I think the fundamental responsibility we can pass it on to consumers and we can pass it on to retailers, but I think the more important thing is to change our approach to a sustainability and and defining that word intellectually and critically, because there is no standard for sustainability. You know that right, there are associated standards with sustainability, but no standard to define sustainability because, because of the complexity of the concept in a practical sense. So I think the responsibility goes deeper than just consumer and retailers. The responsibility goes in defining how to communicate sustainability, how to interpret sustainability, and full stop to understand what is sustainable compared to a non sustainable source. Means you must have heard that we are still debating about cotton. Saying that cotton consumes so many liters of water, means 25,000 liters of water to produce one kg of cotton. Is this sustainable? Is is regenerated cellulose more sustainable than cotton or organic cotton? Now this debate will go on, but hand on heart, are we really clear to the consumers what is sustainable, how they are supposed to make their choice. They are trying their best, and there are so many critical evidence that consumers are trying their best, but sometimes we are not communicating as clearly as we should. By we we mean civic society, academics, so on and so forth. So we have to mature the subject as well. Means it's much easier for me to take the blame on me rather than passing it to somebody else, that is what I'm but can you provide my bigger philosophical point here? The bigger philosophical point is that we have to understand the subject in details, with scientific tools, with numbers, rather than just be subjective about sustainability, which, to some extent, is a problem at this moment.

Jessica Owen
Well, it's funny that you said that, because just in the last couple of weeks I was I was doing some online shopping on H&M's website, and I noticed, when I scrolled down that they have, oh, gosh, I think it's a scale of about one to five as to how sustainable that product is. And now I'm not sure if they have it for every product, but essentially, if it's they're using things like 10 cell or recycled polyester and and I think they've somehow tried to put it into numbers and some sort of scale to to communicate that to the consumer. So that was really interesting. 

Professor Parikshit Goswami
I thought that is really interesting, and it shows that even retailers are trying to do the right thing. But, but my point is, how good that traffic light system, or whatever that is, how good that is depends on the matrix right which they're using to define that and that matrix, I'll say, is still developing, but from the government side, from the academic side, from the retailer side, even from the consumer side, I think the goodwill is there now, and therefore I call this area, which is maturing at a very fast rate compared to other areas, because the intention is there, and there is enough evidence to suggest that the right intention is there. 

Jessica Owen
Well, that's the first step, I guess, definitely so. I mean, what are some of the Have you seen any interesting, maybe new materials in this area that have cropped up recently? I mean, I've read people using mushrooms or bamboo and so on. So I mean, what sort of stuff have you been seeing? 

Professor Parikshit Goswami
Well, I'll stick with the bamboo example, right, which you just said. Now bamboo fibers predominantly are regenerated cellulosic fiber, because they take bamboo and then they process using a viscous process, or a Lyocell process, right? So basically, what I want to communicate through your platform is, let's not come to a premature conclusion, saying it is, it is called bamboo fiber, therefore it is sustainable. Life is much more complicated than that. We have to do a very thorough life cycle analysis for that. So a lot of fibers is coming, right? You have heard about it, bamboo, mushroom, milk fiber, blah, blah, blah, right? But, but, but the point here is, before we turn anything as. Enable. We need to follow a rigorous life cycle analysis process and compare it with something else as a benchmark. And there are projects I can't discuss about that at this moment due to confident confidentiality, but we are actually there are circular economy agenda in the in the UK, and we are writing grant applications where we can bring that criticality into public domain, and we can critically analyze the circular economy approaches so that we can give consumers, retailers, the Civic bodies, a real scientific background on decision making, rather than being impulsive. And there are projects and there are funding calls on this

Jessica Owen
now, Parikshit, I hope you don't mind, but I was wondering what else that you've seen in the industry at the moment. I mean, what's the most cool or eye catching sort of new story that you've seen to do with technical textiles

Professor Parikshit Goswami
now, now you're putting me in a difficult situation, because we are so close to this industry that I have to, if you just want to me to give one or two examples, it will be very difficult for me, because there are many, right? There are means I'm not struggling to find one example. I'm struggling to find which one to say. I I'll take a different approach, right? I'll say according to the importance. Means, there are projects going on with technical textiles, say, in parts of Southeast Asia, which relates to drinking water, right in Southeast Asia, for example, there is a in certain areas, there is a huge problem with arsenic contamination in water. Now, people are developing cheap and cheerful membrane technology so that those arsenic can be removed from the water, which got unbelievable amount of impact on the millions and billions of people who live there, starting from there to the kind of things that are happening in aero textiles and hockey culture for long term sustainability of the world, when the world population will become become 10 billion. What will happen at that point? Now, textile is the heart of it, and and technologies with technical textiles are growing like mushrooms, and all of them are really interesting and are key for future sustainability of the world, because without arrow textiles, for example, the there won't be enough food to feed people, and horticulture and stuff like that. And technical Textiles is at the heart of that.

Jessica Owen
Well, it's like what we said at the very beginning of this podcast. There's just so many things that these textiles can do to help. And as you've rightly answered that question, really things that are interesting and cool might just end up as a fad. But actually, these textiles can really help, them help solve some of these really huge issues that we've got happening in the world, 

Professor Parikshit Goswami
absolutely things from say, for example, developing antiviral finishing to developing water filters, car filters. Means I have a published paper in public domain, so I can talk about it. We developed a filter where biodiesel can be used in cars, because that filter separates water from biodiesel. If we don't develop that filter, then biodiesel will not work. Now we have to find a mechanism to communicate to people. It might not sound the most interesting innovation in the world, but the importance of it, you know, where I'm coming from, and that is the true meaning of sustainability, is to think how our next generation can survive and technical textiles, it is ha in the heart of that revolution. Now I have used the word rightly

Jessica Owen
and so on that theme then Parikshit. I mean, is there anything that you would love to develop, but you don't necessarily have the capacity or the knowledge to achieve that, yet

Professor Parikshit Goswami
everything, and that is why it is whenever we want to do anything meaningful, all we have to do is form those collaborations. Right? We can't have knowledge in every field. It's impossible. And therefore collaboration is key for our development, collaboration with other academics, collaboration with the Civic body, collaboration with industry. In other word, my role is to create an ecosystem in the UK where where our talents can solve our contemporary problems, and the supply chain is there. I can't do it alone and and for that, I need a team. I need a team from different disciplines, and the seed for, for that my only dream is to nurture the seed for, for that holistic solution, that ecosystem, which I call technical textile Research Center in Harris field. It is just a seed which we have to nurture so that it can grow.

Jessica Owen
Well, that sounds very poetic. I must say, it's a really, it's a lovely dream. And hopefully, the more students, and the more people that start to recognize what technical textiles can do, hopefully the more people that can get together, collaborate, and then eventually achieve these things. Absolutely. Now, finally, I mean, we, I could probably talk to you for so much longer about all of this. But finally, as we sort of mentioned at the very beginning, WTI n is hosting a virtual a virtual trade show soon. I mean, what do you think of the idea of a virtual trade show, and how important is it that we keep events going sort of during this time and this very funny year that we're having? 

Professor Parikshit Goswami
Well, I actually discussed this with several of your colleagues. I think it is an excellent, excellent way of doing it, because sometimes, you know, even in normal circumstances, sometimes traveling to all trade shows are difficult, right? In fact, last year, I travelled to so many trade shows, and it becomes very difficult to reach out the right collaborators, electronic platform to do that is an excellent initiative. The biggest challenge will be how many stakeholders you can involved in that, and how you can let the stakeholders interact. But hey, ho, it's a learning process, right? And we'll all learn from this. But in general, it is an excellent, excellent initiative, long overdue. Okay,

Jessica Owen
well, Parikshit, I mean, it's been a pleasure to talk to you today and to have your insights on everything that's happening within the industry. So I mean, thank you very much for your time and for joining me today. It's been great.

Professor Parikshit Goswami
My pleasure.