Electrical Conductivity in Textile Fibers and Yarns—Review

This paper presents an extensive review on electrical conductivity in textile fibers and yarns. The focus is an attempt at exhaustively classifying various types of conductive yarns based on their modes of manufacture, composition, and areas of application. Yarn classes include whole metallic yarns, composite conductive yarns, plated yarns, conductive polymer yarns and yarns made of new nano-materials and nano-composites. Electrical conductivity is exploited to effect smart textile applications such as strain sensing, capacitance, antimicrobial activity, antistatic and electromagnetic shielding. The lack of clear distinction in conductive yarn categorization and their possible areas of application are clarified in this review.