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However, they cannot provide uniform heating and their brittle characteristics can damage spinning
machinery over time. Additionally, they are heavier than most textile fibres making homogeneous
blends difficult to produce [10].
It is a common method to blend metal fibres or wires with conventional fibres and thus result in a
conductive yarn. In the following, some producers of such yarns and their commercially available
yarns are pointed out.
As mentioned before, Bekaert is a company specialised in the production of metal fibres for technical
applications. They introduced a Polyester spun yarn with 20% Bekinox ® stainless steel fibres under
the brand name Bektex BK ® to the market. This yarn may be used to gain antistatic or heating
properties in textiles, which is important, for instance, for conveyer belts, Flexible Intermediate Bulk
Containers or woven filter cloth. Additionally, it can be used in the field of signal transfer and electromagnetic
shielding.
The Belgian company also commercialised Bekinox ® PES yarn which is a blended yarn containing
50% Polyester fibres and 50% Bekinox ® stainless steel fibres [10].
The Swiss company Elektrisola Feindraht AG produces metal monofilaments that can be blended with
all sorts of fibres or that can be directly used in weaving and knitting. The products range from copper
(Cu) and silver-plated copper (Cu/Ag) filaments, brass (Ms) and silver-plated brass (Ms/Ag) filaments,
aluminium (Al) filaments to copper-clad aluminium (CCA) filaments [14].
The company Swiss-Shield ® is specialised in producing metal monofilaments which are incorporated
into base yarns like cotton, polyester, polyamides and aramides. The metal monofilaments are made
out of copper, brass, bronze, silver, gold, aluminium, for instance.
The following picture shows a typical conductive yarn with base fibres and a metal monofilament
twisted around them [15].
Fig. 3 Conductive yarn by Swiss-Shield
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