E-learning for textiles

1)      What kind of company are you?

Bekintex is a company of 90+ employees fully owned by Bekaert, a global company of 30.000+ employees, with the Fibres Technologies section having 400+ employees and 1000 customers in 60 different countries. Our focus is on stainless steel fibres for use in filtration, shielding, … but also smart textiles.

Example products:

Typical applications:

 

2)      Please provide the most interesting example of technical / smart textiles that you have.

For smart textiles our most interesting product is our range of filament and spun stainless steel yarns. They are integrated for example by customers in clothes to stimulate muscles. Our fibers have also been used to create textile pressure sensors. Car seat heating is also a large market for our yarns, as well as RFID, where the filament is used for the antenna part in textiles.

 

3)      How did you promote or put your product on the market?

We are in the B2B market, so deliver a semi-finished product. We are present at textile fairs, conferences, where customers find us. We also participate in working groups to create papers within specific application areas. Customers then come to us and we help in the development for the part requiring our yarns, fibers or filaments.

 

4)      What requirements do your customers most request? (EC Certifications, washing etc.)

Most requested properties for smart textiles are washable, comfortable, flexible, durable and thin/lightweight. We can offer these with our product. As we only contribute a single part, many requests are also about the connections. At the moment the main options for that are mechanical crimping, stitching, and ultrasonic welding.

Smart textiles is a relatively small market, so little new specific product development is done for this, but we do come out with new types of yarn from time to time to broaden our portfolio. At the moment we are for example finalizing stainless steel yarn that can be used for embroidery, an often requested product.

 

5)      What is the competition in your market for smart textiles?

We do not have real competitors. It is a growth market also, and as a global company we are very well positioned to serve the market competitively. We do see many new smart textiles start-ups, but as we do B2B we see them as potential customers.

 

6)      What is your advice to new smart textile companies?

We have many recurring questions, indicating a lack of knowledge still by starting entrepreneurs on the possibilities of smart textiles. We can only help partially in this, we focus on our product, not the finalized smart textile garment. They should seek help for that in other places. We can advise however in what machines to use with our products and on combinations of materials. The best approach is to communicate open and clearly with us on the desired properties of the final product.

 

7)      Do you agree in sharing some of these experiences for educational purposes?

Yes. We can share some of our thread/bands if needed. A pressure/RH sensor was made with our fibres at IMEC, it might also be possible to ask them to have a sample.