"I know it doesn't look like a lot, but it corresponds to what our own muscles can lift," says Anne Ladegaard Skov, Professor at DTU Chemical Engineering. She points to a small thin rubber wire with the letter D at the end, which bounces up and down.
The D is followed by a T and a U, and along with the rest of the line-up, the rocking university initials signal that a blouse with superpowers could be within reach.
"The rubber threads are made of silicone elastomers, and we have managed to make them in a shape resembling a sewing thread. The idea is to bundle them so we copy the body's own muscle structure. We can then weave the bundle into a piece of clothing," explains Anne Ladegaard Skov.
Together with her research team, she has designed the silicone thread with a cavity which a conductive liquid can run through. Just like when the brain sends an electrical signal to the body's muscles to activate, the researchers can send current through the artificial muscle fibres via the conductive fluid and cause them to contract. When this happens, they can lift 200 times their own weight. They thus have the potential to make life easier for millions of people with impaired muscle function.
"Our goal is to enable weakened people to carry five extra kilos, roughly equivalent to a half-filled carrier bag from the local supermarket. It's quite a lot, and there are still some things we need to solve before we have reached our goal," says Anne Ladegaard Skov.
