LSU Develops Smart Textile That Detects Fevers in Infants
January 20, 2023
Sibei Xia, assistant professor in the Department of Textiles, Apparel Design and Merchandising, received a grant from the Provost’s Fund for Innovation in Research to develop thermochromic clothing to track newborns’ temperatures.
– Annabelle Lang/LSU College of Agriculture
Researcher Sibei Xia of the LSU Department of Textiles, Apparel Design, and Merchandising is exploring ways to use “smart clothing” to track newborns’ temperatures through thermochromic yarn that changes color based on body temperature.
“If the newborn’s temperature goes really high, it’s going to change the hat to a beige color so that we don’t have to necessarily measure the temperature that often or use other technologies to monitor temperature,” Xia said.
The Provost’s Fund for Innovation in Research is funding this emerging research. It
supports interdisciplinary research in five priority areas, including biotechnology
and agriculture.