Smart textiles and high performance materials are main topics at SALTEX 2018

For this, the organisers will be able to rely on the tried and tested elements of the first SALTEX, while developing and expanding particular aspects of the event’s programme. This will include giving matters relating to smart textiles and high performance materials greater prominence, while also expanding the supporting programme overall.

Smart textiles and high performance materials

The main topic of the 2nd SALTEX will be smart textiles and high performance materials. The emerging smart textiles industry is seen as a key technology of the future and enjoys growing interest among industries outside of textiles. Thanks to the strong impetus driving innovation in smart textiles, established consumer industries such as structural engineering, mobility, medicine, and the sports and lifestyle sector have been inspired and revived. Thus, through the textile industry’s integration of electric conductor tracks, sensor applications and various wearables, a highly diverse range of other industries has already established contact with the textile industry, which can offer new and efficient processing methods. With progressive digitalisation (key term ‘Industry 4.0’), or the Internet of Things (IoT), intelligent textiles offer completely new ways for humans and machines to interact, and means of digitally networking soft sensors. In this respect, smart textiles support the constantly growing market for mobile applications equipped with textile sensors that can actually feel or are sensitive to pressure. These technologies pique the interest of IT and telecommunications companies and stimulate the appetite of a hungry software market. Cross-sectoral know-how is the prerequisite for the successful application of these kinds of intelligent products. So SALTEX provides a unique range of exhibitors and contributions from experts, particularly in the area of smart textiles, thereby serving as a pioneering trade fair within the industry.

The second big subject area at SALTEX involves so-called high performance materials (HPM). HPMs include high-performance synthetics, textile polymers and composite textiles in highly diverse combinations of materials. The new kinds of materials are growing in importance due to their particular properties and potential for multifunctional use. 

They meet the exacting demands of modern industrial processes, and their exceptional properties are revolutionising established industries. The potential for the use of HPMs is just as great, from construction technology to the food industry, from energy technology or motor vehicle manufacturing to workplace health and safety.

Thomas Burtscher, MSc has been the new Project Manager at SALTEX since the middle of the year. ‘We’ve quite deliberately positioned SALTEX as a leading trade fair in the smart textiles and high performance materials sector, so as to give these key technologies of the future the appropriate visibility. Combining a theme-based exhibition with an international symposium offers visitors a unique opportunity to acquire, or develop, exciting insights and contacts in these industries. SALTEX is regarded as a platform that enables other industries to benefit from the modern textile industry’s opportunities and connections. Through innovations that have attracted a great deal of attention, today’s textile companies are working closely with the plastics industry, toolmaking, automation engineering and electrical engineering. These cooperative relationships are now not only cross-sectoral, but also global. Therefore, it’s important for us as event organisers to maintain bilingualism throughout, and to provide communication in both German and English for the 2nd SALTEX.’

Dornbirn-GFC concurrent with SALTEX

Particularly pleasing is the newly established cooperation between SALTEX and the international fibre congress, ‘Dornbirn-GFC’ (formerly Dornbirn MFC). Visitors, in particular, to the respective events benefit from this. The international fibre congress will take place from 12th to 14th September 2018 alongside and concurrently with SALTEX, and is considered to be the leading trade congress in the area of synthetic fibres. In order to create synergies together, there are plans to include combined admission options, continual bus transfers between the two events, and a joint SALTEX and ‘Dornbirn-GFC’ networking and opening evening.