Sensor shirt

How much water does the body lose while jogging, hiking or cycling? Threatening dehydration or mineral deficiency? Researchers are developing a shirt that changes color to show how much an athlete has exuded.

In the future, intelligent clothing may warn the person concerned about dehydration. Researchers from the now independent Fraunhofer Institute for Modular Solid State Technology EMFT have developed a process that can make the loss of fluid visible. The first tests with cotton T-shirts, which were impregnated with a chemical dye are successful. The pale purple shirts changed to yellow when they come into contact with sweat. "The color change is clearly visible and show the athlete that it is time to drink," Dr. Gerhard Mohr explained by the working group sensor materials EMFT in Regensburg. If the substance comes into contact with an alkaline substance - such as with detergent in the washing machine - it changes to purple. Acidic fluids such as sweat make it turn yellow. The color change in the T-shirt is reversible. The yellow color disappears during the next wash. Only when the fabric is soaked with sweat again, does it change to yellow.

Source: idw-online.deAdded: 21 December 2010