Textiles & Superheroes


Textilephere superheroes suits and application of textiles

Textiles and Superheroes
Shantanu Chaudhari
Department of Textile Technology
Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute Mumbai, India

A superheroes Fiction or a future Reality?

In recent times the gap between fiction to reality has reduced drastically. Few things that we could just imagine well before time is a reality now. Similarly, I have seen some kinds of a reel things in some movies in last few years and the only question that came in my mind is can this happen in real life?
No one can answer this question perfectly. Before Wright brother’s invention of world’s first aeroplane, human flying was just a myth. But today it’s a reality. Similarly, we have seen such kind of things in some latest superheroes movies that can be a reality.
Let’s take some examples from the popular MCU movies.

Iron Man Suit:
Iron man was the first movie of MCU series which marked a start of a new fantastic and mind-blowing universe which afterward brook many records in film industry. If you carefully observe evolution of Iron man suit, in very first movie that came in year 2008 it was just a metal suit but afterwards in Avengers Infinity War that came in year 2018 it also included Nano technological aspects.

Fig-Iron Man 

Can this really happen? Would we able to see a real iron man flying over our head?
The answer is simple but tricky: Who knows!
But some inventors have started using this idea to develop an iron man like suit. For example, British inventor and co-founder of Gravity company Richard Browning have develop a suit called Daedalus Mark 1. His suit holds Guinness World Record for ‘Fastest speed in body-controlled jet engine powered suit.’

 Daedalus Mark 1 Suit (PC- NBC news)
Browning has been dubbed as Real Iron Man by several media outlets around the world.
You want to be an Iron Man, purchase this suit which cost £340,000 only!

Vibranium:

Black Panther

In the Marvel comics Vibranium is a metal found in the mineral rich country of Wakanda which is headed by a Black Panther. This metal started growing in Wakanda because of a meteoroid made of Vibranium struck on the ground of Wakanda many years ago. This element was primarily used in Captain America’s shield and in Black Panther Suit.
So does such a kind of element is there? Would we able to see Captain America or say Captain India! having a vibranium shield? Does Black Panther Suit exist?
Again, I would like to give same answer: Who Knows
The potential material that can be compared to Vibranium is Graphene. It is strong, light weight and has the potential to save energy just like we saw in Black panther movie.
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) says that they have developed a new combination of materials to protect its high-speed pods. They are calling this material as Vibranium only!

Fig-Graphene Technology

HTT has developed this material with the help of Slovakian Researchers. They have use base of carbon fibre, same element that is used in synthesis of Graphene.
Really, we humans still don’t have 100% information about carbon element. It’s mine personal favourite element. By only changing its hybridization state, we can change full characteristics of carbon only if we could do it. Carbon can come in different form like Hard, Shinny and a bad conductor of electricity and Heat in case of Diamond or Brittle, Smooth and a Good conductor of electricity in the case of Graphite. You read it right. Both Diamond and Graphite are allotropes of carbon but has totally different characteristics. Carbon in case of Diamond Hybridizes in sp3 state while in Graphite it Hybridizes in sp2 state.

Wakanda Protective Shield:


In the movie Avengers Infinity War, we have seen that all the Wakanda is covered and protected by a security shield. Also, all of the tribe warriors form a protective shield just bringing cloth in front of them.

Protective Shield Formed with Cloth (PC- Geektraynt)
I know here that I am talking about a 21st century or even beyond that technology (Even Doremon is from 21st century not beyond that!), but yes, such technology can exist, and I believe that technical textile will have an important role in that. Currently we are now way near that technology, but we can. For achieving such a kind of technology it will more than years or can even take a century.
In The end I would like to say only one point that textile is everlasting. There is no end to this field. Cloth is one of the 3 basic needs that a human being requires to survive. In last few decades we have expanded use of textile from clothing to functional and believe me this is just a start. The real is best is still to come.

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1 Comments

  1. I like how intresting the content is!!! Simply amazing!

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