Book excerpt: Smart Textiles from Natural Resources is an interdisciplinary guide to best practice and emerging challenges in the use of natural textiles in smart applications. The movement towards smart textiles has attracted researchers from many fields creating multidisciplinary research frontiers with nanoscience, smart materials and structures, microelectronics, and wireless communication. This ground-breaking book provides technical advice and foundational support to researchers from all of these backgrounds seeking to include sustainability in their solutions.Each chapter in this book is written, reviewed and edited to cover the principles of manufacture, process techniques and mechanisms, and the state-of-the-art construction specifications, properties, test methods and standards of the major product areas and applications of this field. - Covers a wide variety of novel applications of smart textiles, including medical, protective, and automotive - Proposed solutions are based on case studies from academic and industrial labs around the world - Explains how to improve the biodegradability, renewability, biocompatibility, and non-toxicity of smart products