MONEY

Kodak smells success in stink-free fabrics

Matthew Daneman
Staff writer
  • Silver also is a very good conductor of electricity
  • A number of companies are using silver for the booming universe of capacitive touchscreens

Science put a man on the moon.

Science eradicated smallpox.

And when Eastman Kodak Co. scientist Gary Slater wore the same T-shirt for two weeks straight, it was science that prevented it from turning funky.

"It feels good," Slater said as he pulled the collar of the silver-infused and since-laundered shirt out for inspection. "I love it."

Kodak — long a photography company, now a printing technology company — has always been a silver company. The compound silver halide is a key ingredient in photographic film due to its reactivity to light. And the company traditionally has been among the largest consumers of silver in the world for its film products.

Now Kodak is hoping to turn another property of silver — its ability to kill germs and bacteria — into stink-free socks.

Rochester-based Kodak in November announced it had signed an agreement to exclusively provide a silver sulfate compound to PurThread Technologies Inc., with that company in turn using the material in the manufacture of synthetic fibers that then get woven into yarn. The two companies in February said they were expanding that relationship with a joint development agreement that would see them working on other possible products.

The Kodak additive, AgAM 100, specifically is aimed at preventing the discoloration and odor caused by sweat-eating microbes.

Garments incorporating PurThread product can be worn "for days and days and days and it won't smell," Kodak Chief Technology Officer Terry Taber said.

North Carolina textile firm PurThread started in 2009 with the idea of making antimicrobial fabrics for health-care settings. While that market and application remains an eventual goal, said President Lisa T. Grimes, PurThread first is targeting the athletic gear world with its Kodak-infused products. On its own online company store, PurThread sells a $75 lab coat, $35 medical scrub top and $65 golf shirt, all promising to inhibit the growth of any odor-causing bacteria or fungus.

PurThread-made yarn — made with Kodak's silver sulfate powder mixed into each strand like chocolate chips in cookie dough — first hit the market in fall 2013. PurThread contracts out the manufacturing of its yarn to various U.S. companies, Grimes said.

"There's a lot of interest in embedded technology that doesn't wash off and run down the drain," Grimes said. "We're getting good reception in the marketplace."

Kodak scientist Valerie Turner works in a particle technology lab on a process to be used in a partnership with PurThread Technologies Inc.
Fabric magnified 2,000 times shows some of the threads that could be treated with a antimicrobial process by Kodak’s silver salt technology.

Taber said Kodak expects "modest revenues" this year from the PurThread work, but hopes to see those numbers ramp up in 2015 and 2016 as the two companies roll out a variety of other products.

Silver has long been known for its antimicrobial properties. "There are stories of people centuries ago taking silver coins and putting them on cuts," Taber said. "I don't know if they're true."

However, silver's use as an antimicrobial agent has been limited. Merely making silver sulfate is one thing, Taber said: "You have to get it in a form you can deliver it and it maintains its effectiveness. The real inventiveness Kodak brings to this is creating the right silver salt and is stable through all these processes."

Kodak has tried this line of business year ago with a liquid silver sulfate solution that would work as a coating, Taber said. That approach never panned out, though products coated with the solution did pass the 50-wash test, Taber said. The embedded silver sulfate particles are "something we knew would have longer term application," he said. "And it has a wider range of applications."

Being entwined with PurThread is part of a business goal of Kodak to team up with other companies. Kodak last fall announced an agreement with Swiss machinery maker BOBST that would see Kodak technology used in BOBST box-making equipment. And it is working with a pair of touchscreen film manufacturers, supplying raw materials and some technical expertise.

"We're always looking for new business relationships," Taber said. "One of the hallmarks of the new Kodak is that in a lot of the businesses — in digital printing and functional printing, whether it be the materials or substrates or components — we'd be working with partners."

MDANEMAN@DemocratandChronicle.com

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A touch of silver

Along with its photo sensitivity and its antimicrobial properties, silver also is a very good conductor of electricity.

That has a number of companies using silver for the booming universe of capacitive touchscreens. Numerous smartphones and computer tablets use capacitive touchscreen technology, which involves sensors tracking the disruption of the electrical charge in the screen's glass when touched by a finger.

Kingsbury Corp., which makes touchscreen films as well as equipment for manufacturing those same films, announced in January it had signed an agreement to supply Taiwanese electronic components company JTOUCH Corp. with its silver mesh-based touchscreen sensor film. Kingsbury operates out of Kodak's Eastman Business Park, and Kodak is a supplier of raw materials to Kingsbury.

And Fujifilm Holdings Corp., long Kodak's chef rival in the photographic and motion picture film world, reportedly is working on its own silver-based touchscreens.