Portable Light Project

Versatile textile with flexible photovoltaics and solid state lighting that can be adapted to weaving and sewing technologies. Produces light and has the ability to charge elecrical devices such as cell phones.

Website: http://www.kvarch.net/

IN)VISIBLE MEMBRANE: life on the human body and its design applications’

Rendering the invisable "visable", Austrian designer Sonja Baumel fuses fashion, philosophy ans science by exploring how bacteria on our skin could be used to create material.

Repelled by heat, fibres build up in areas that require the most warmth and insulation.

Website: http://www.sonjabaeumel.at/index.php?content=im&collapse=true

Memory Shape Alloy / Muscle Wire

Muscle wires are this strands of special nickel-titanium alloy that actually shorten in length when electrically powered. They are easy to use, and they can lift thousands of times their own weight. The direct linear motion of Muscle Wires offers experimenters a source of motion that is very similar to that of a human muscle, providing possibilities not available with motors or solenoids. Ideal for making small, simple walking robots. Can be weaved in with ordinary material.

Examples: http://cita.karch.dk/Menu?projects/Behaving+Architectures(selection)/Vivisection

Polymer Captures Carbon Dioxide

Klaus Lackner, a professor of geophysics at Columbia Uniersity, is experimenting with a material composite that chemically binds to carbon dioxide in the air and then, when doused in water, releases the gas in a concentrated form that can easily be captured.

Lackner envisions automated systems, millions, each the size of a small cabin - scattered over the countryside near geologic reservoir that could store the gases they capture. A system based on this material could remove carbon dioxide from the air a thousand times as fast as trees do now.

Movie: http://nanoarchitecture.net

Robo-Fabric

The shape memory alloy nitinol has the ability to spring back to its original forged shape when heated, allowing soft actuation without motors. Italian fashion designers grado zero made a shirt that rolled up its own sleeves when the wire (and the wearer) overheat. The thin metal wire is woven into material for different kinetic effects.