The AT EXPO is held in different cities across North America each year and AT EXPO 2024 is being held in Anaheim, California, September 24-26. The education program highlight will be the AT Emerging Technologies Conference starting on September 23 and running for an extended day and a half. Programming has now been finalized, covering a wide range of topics from sustainability in healthcare to addressing PFAS regulations to textiles in the new Space economy.
“Our attendees told us they wanted to see more education on the show floor, so we now have more opportunities than ever before to learn during the show,” says Jonathan Sweet, Director of Content and Member Programs. “We’re very excited about our new approach to education at this year’s Advanced Textiles Expo, along with an expanded Emerging Technologies Conference and more content aimed at the next generation and women leaders.”
Many of the speakers are new to EXPO, including Holly Morris a Consultant Hand Surgeon, Medical Textiles Expert and a co-author of the UK Green Surgery Report. She will be bringing her unique perspective to bear in a presentation titled,” ‘A clinical perspective on improving sustainability within healthcare textiles.” Morris makes a compelling argument for the importance of addressing this issue that has such a large environmental, social and monetary cost: “By generating almost 5% of the world’s carbon emissions, healthcare, if it were a country, would be the world’s fifth biggest polluter.” The presentation will be solution focused, looking at obstacles to implementation and strategies to address these across the value chain.
A regular speaker at AT EXPO, Frank Keohan, Senior Technology Manager, Bolger & O’Hearn Inc, is well-placed to address one of the hottest issues of the textile industry, PFAS – sometimes referred to as “forever chemicals” because of their persistence in the environmental. Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are under intense scrutiny in North America and globally. The EPA is unequivocal in the risks posed by the chemicals stating in their PFAS Strategic Roadmap: Second Annual Progress Report published at the end of 2023: “The science is clear: exposure to certain PFAS poses significant risks to human health, including cancer, even at very low levels.” They have been used throughout the textile industry since the 1950s, particularly as liquid repellents for applications such as water repellency. Finding an alternative that is fluorine-free with a comparable performance is challenging. Keohan will look at the critical choices around repellent and application conditions while providing the basics around PFAS, how to detect it, regulatory issues and the evolving technology set to increase repellency performance.
Axiom Space took part in the AT EXPO 2024 space and sportswear panel, one of the most exciting discussions of the conference last year. This year there will be a presentation from Salman Chaundry who is a Senior Technical Advisor for KBR Inc, partnering with Axiom Space to support the NASA Artemis III Mission. An expert in fibers and material science, his presentation is titled, “Weaving the future: how textiles ensure astronaut survival in space.”
Driven by the demanding requirements of the Artemis III Mission Chaundry will highlight the very harsh environment faced by astronauts in the Low Earth Orbit and the Lunar Surface. The list of challenges include flammability, extreme temperature fluctuations, UV radiations, atomic oxygen influx, micro-meteoroid orbital debris risks and how it correlates to textile material performance for the space environment qualification. Any one of these would be a challenge. Looking to the next generation of space exploration, these are the conditions that astronauts, and the textile designers and manufacturers must find solutions for.
There will be an additional education program available to all EXPO 2024 exhibitors and attendees on the show floor throughout the exhibition at no additional charge. Highlighted events include a Next Gen Takeover Day, with networking and education aimed at young leaders and employees to be held on Wednesday and a Women’s Leadership Session to be held on Thursday.
Further information on the Education program and speakers at AT EXPO 2024 can be found at: https://advancedtextilesexpo.com/education/
