Can Fabric be Made to Glow?

That is good idea every one dream about. Fortunately some one has found the technology and you can find out the explanation and take the step easily.

Try to visit this Website, for example:

http://www.luminex.it/

You can also look at this technology http://www.jdsu.com/index.cfm?pagepath=Products/De corative

Hi Sabastian - Lots of ways to make light up fabric - coming from a background in lighting innovation and design and global director of lighting innovation for a fortune 100. The coolest ways with existing technology - other than designing with Phosphor type thread which requires activation (unless using a cesium or other rare element glowing molecular source) is to use some combination of a fiber optic weave combined with super bright/low power LEDS - or, depending on the application, the use of Electroluminescent thread, rope and ribbon can be just as fascinating. Especially when combined with a frequency shifting inverter - which will allow you to shift colors as well. Last but not least, extruded side lit fiber optic thread and rope can be fun to use as well with a point light source and a color changing technology - such as a color wheel or computer controlled full spectral lighting source. Combinations of these creative light sources - combined with the use of either LED MPU controllers or small battery powered plasma lighting effects will surely wow your audience. How's that for a start? Warm Regards, Bruce Winkler Innostrat Group, LLC Madison, Wisconsin bruce@brucewinkler.com 608-238-2989 608-215-0031

I've been looking for a couple of years now for a self contained bright Red and Green specifically illuminated fabric or similar method of non toxic wearable apparel that can be manufactured or obtained for manufacturing. It would have to conform to various sizes and shapes, perhaps as large as a basketball or small as an orange with various shapes. Must be semi flexible (no hard corners or creases required). Does anyone here have any suggestions of who I could contact (supplier) that material can be obtained from?

Thanks.

Check out this stuff. www.energlo.ca http://specialty.com.au/ It's manufactured in your home country. It's a film laminated to a textile. The yellow/green is the only good color. The others are dim. After some exposure to the intense Australian sun, it gets a real bright glow which last about 3 hours. I've also seen a glowing ink (don't remember from whom) that is available in every color you can think of that glows real bright and lasts for near 6 hours. I also sugest you request the MSDS on these products. Some of them contain some real nasty stuff.

You did not say exactly what kind of designer you are, or what you design. That could make a big difference in what is recommended. For example, if you are a clothing designer looking to make cloth glow for self-contained, self-illuminating clothing articles that would be very different from an interior designer looking to make fabrics glow that are used in curtains, valances, and other draperies, which could use external power sources or external lighting. Or perhaps you do display design for a department store, also different requiremnets.

All of the above were good ideas. One golden oldie which still works today, maybe kind of retro style, is the use of "black light", which is another name for ultraviolet (UV). UV makes certain bright colors and whites "glow" in a similar way to how fluorescent lighting works. UV is a higher energy level than visual light. When UV photons strike certain materials/chemicals they give up energy and reduce in frequency into the visible light range before being re-radiated from the object. This is a form of photoluminescense called fluorescence.

When a scene is illuminated only or primarily with UV you get stark contrasts, as certain objects "glow" and others do not. Human skin and hair, for example does not normally fluoresce, unless it has certain chemical treatments, including fluorescent skin paints. White cotton and sythethic fibers will glow an eerie purplish-blue. Other so-called "day-glo" or fluorescent materials and dyes will glow brightly with a similar color to what they appear in normal light, contrasting with other non-fluorescing colors.

"Phosphorescent" items, sometimes referred to as "glow-in-the-dark" are another form of photoluminescence but there is a much longer time delay between the absorption of photons and the re-radiation of lower energy photons. Most of these materials also work with visible white light, including sunlight, which contains the entire spectrum of colors, and absorb photons while they are "charging up" over a period of time, say minutes or hours. Then, with visible light reduced or eliminated, these "charged" material will radiate their lower energy photons for a similarly long period of time and thus "glow-in-the dark".

Some radioactive materials like radium, tritium ,etc. are self-luminescent, and have been used to manufacture glowing watch and compass faces for viewing in the dark, these materials are health hazards to work with or to use over long periods of time in close proximity to human tissue due to the low level atomic radiation they emit along with the visible light.

There are also photoluminescent chemicals which glow for a short time (up to several hours) when mixed, as their chemical reaction gives of light instead of heat energy. These are the basis of so-called "light sticks" and the glowing plastic necklaces you often see at public events. I would think it might be possible to decorate and illuminate some cloth materials with replaceable capsules of such materials.

Whow !!! very interesting. What about o´led fabrics or flexible sheets?. I would like to used them for iluminating and decorating but can´t find very ussefull information. Any help. Regards Luis

Yes, you can make the cloth material to store light energy and can glow in darkness. This is called Phosphorescence.

Signboards on the road side glow. They use Fluorescent ink.

Comets glow when they get heated while entering into earth atmosphere and release thermoluminescent light.

You can also make cloths to glow chemically like fire flies.

Using organic LEDS you can glow it but that needs power.

Shyam

One solution would be to grow an algae like chlorella pyrenadosa in tritiated water. It would then incorporate tritium into it's cellulose husk. this is the basis of viscose fibre. if phosphors were incorporated into the extruded thread. then the cloth would glow. Health and safety might be a problem. Tritium decays to harmless helium 3, but that might make the thread break. beta emmissions can be halted by thin paper, so I guess if the fibre had an inner core tritiated and an outer sleeve of regular fibre, then the radiation count could be tollerably low. A glowing 'Radiation Hazard' sign patched onto a Hells Angels leather jacket. with some glowing skull and crossbones and swastikas. folk would keep their distance. so they at least would be safe!

As a simple rule, keep away from all radioactive source as they can cause cancer as they do cause cancer. Even watches with Radium are banned. Even if you believe that evolution is triggered by ionizing radiation, you are not going to evolve into a great creature by exposing to radiation. Just keep that kind things out of your life if you can avoid. Expose to x-rays only when essential. Radioactivity is a serious environmental hazard.

To all of you concerned with making cloth/textiles glow or illuminate, check out the new philips innovation called "Lumalive textiles". It is something that will revolutionise marketing as well as safety/high visibility clothing. Also once it comes into general production it will create fantastic posibilities within the interior decorating industry.

Conrad

Thanks Conrad, what a great new innovation that 'Lumalive' is, Well done Philips. My daughter Helena Carnegie is reading 'Textiles and Fashion' just now at Central Saint Martins College, in London. I expect she will already know all about it.

I am also interested in how to make fabric for clothing glow in the dark . I found this website

http://www.glowfur.com where they produce faux fur items that glow. On their site , they state that "GlowFur™ apparel is setting a new standard of wearable art with it's creative approach of matching just the right kind of Faux Fur with special internal lighting technology." Can anyone explain - in relatively simple terms-how such a technology might work so I can try to make my own glowy coat? thanks.

In The Dark, Glow Bear! Check out this site! This Glow in the dark product is a winner!

www.what-ifproductions.com

That glow bear looks strangely toxic. I don't know how safe long term it would be to give to a kid!

I've always wanted a glow in the dark cloak though without using paint or glow sticks.