Rike Brendgen

• Master of Applied Science
• Research Associate at Hochschule Niederrhein

The need for more efficient health services and the trend of a healthy lifestyle pushes the development of smart textiles. Since textiles have always been an object of everyday life, smart textiles promise an extensive user acceptance. Thereby, the manufacture of electrical components based on textile materials is of great interest for applications...

Polyvinyl butyral is used in safety glass interlayers, mainly in car windshields. Legislative regulations require a recycling of cars after their lifetime and therefore also their safety glass. This causes the availability of recycled polyvinyl butyrate (r-PVB) originated from safety glass interlayers. Due to deteriorated optical properties, such a...

Flexible and stretchable strain sensors are an important development for measuring various movements and forces and are increasingly used in a wide range of smart textiles. For example, strain sensors can be used to measure the movements of arms, legs or individual joints. Thereby, most strain sensors are capable of detecting large movements with a...

Smart textiles have properties that outperform the conventional protective and decorative function of textiles. By integrating special sensors into clothing, body functions and movements can be detected. Piezoresistive sensors measure a change in electrical resistance due to the application of force in the form of stretching, pressure or bending. I...

The global rise in diabetes has highlighted the urgent need for continuous, non-invasive health monitoring solutions. Traditional glucose monitoring methods, which are invasive and often inconvenient, have created a demand for alternative technologies that can offer comfort, accuracy, and real-time data. In this study, the development of a textile-...

Porous conductive polymer structures, in particular Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) structures, are gaining in importance due to their versatile fields of application as sensors, hydrogels, or supercapacitors, to name just a few. Moreover, (porous) conducting polymers have become of interest for wearable and smart...

The increasing prevalence of diabetes worldwide has heightened the need for innovative and patient-friendly glucose monitoring technologies. Wearable devices that integrate non-invasive glucose sensors into everyday clothing can further enhance user comfort and seamlessly fit into daily routines, making health management more intuitive and less int...

A person’s body temperature is an important indicator of their health status. A deviation of that temperature by just 2 °C already has or can lead to serious consequences, such as fever or hypothermia. Hence, the development of a temperature-sensing and heatable yarn is an important step toward enabling and improving the monitoring and regulation o...

Polyvinyl Butyral (PVB) is typically used as protective interlayer in laminated glass (e.g. safety glass and car windshields). During the glass lamination process, large volumes of PVB trim are formed. In addition, large amounts of PVB waste are generated by recycling of car wind shields. Since a vehicle contains approx. 1 kg of PVB. Therefore sepa...

The high-performance thermoplastic polymer polyvinyl butyral (PVB) is commonly known for its use as interlayer in laminated safety glass in windshields for cars. During car recycling huge amounts of this polymer accumulate. The properties of the recycled polymer resin are different from these of pristine PVB due to additives and associate materials...