Clothes that adapt to temperatures and fold by themselves!

A small, lightweight jacket that will become as warm as a down jacket as soon as it gets cold is possible thanks to a discovery by researchers at MIT in the United States. They have developed FibeRobo: a new type of textile fiber capable of contracting or expanding depending on the temperature. When it’s hot, they will move away from each other, air out like linen, which will allow the heat to escape more easily. Conversely, when it is cold, they will tighten, trap heat and therefore warm us.

The advantage is that the temperature from which you switch from one mode to another is completely adjustable. We can create fabrics for those who are cold which will warm up as soon as we drop below 20°C. Then others only from 13 or 14 degrees, it’s your choice.

This is not the first time that we have succeeded in creating fibers capable of changing state. But this is the first time that we have managed to make them compatible with the machines currently used in the textile industry. So there will be more chance of finding them in stores one day. Which is good news, because until now, we had either fabrics that warm (fleece, wool) or cool (cotton, linen), but rarely a fabric that does both natural.

Researchers have also imagined fabrics that fold on their own

We can imagine t-shirts, shirts, sportswear. Researchers have also worked on curtains that warm the room when it is cold outside and cool it when it is hot. This allows you to save on heating, above all, by placing these fibers which retract in strategic locations.

They have also succeeded in creating fabrics that fold by themselves. Imagine: you wash a T-shirt or a towel and once dry, you blow them with a hairdryer to heat them and they will fold by themselves as if they had just come from the dry cleaners. So you will no longer have any excuse to roll your things into a ball.