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Communications in Development and Assembling of Textile Products

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Communications in Development and Assembling of Textile Products
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Smart, knitted and volume-reducible transport box for electro-mobile, temperature-related pharmaceutical and vaccine logistics

Authors

Julia Klausmann, Thomas Mutschler, Christof Breckenfelder, Marcus O. Weber, Maik-Julian Büker, Thomas Freitag, Matthias Hummel, Martin Zeitler, Oliver van Neerven
Julia Klausmann
Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences, Mönchengladbach, Germany
Thomas Mutschler
Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences, Mönchengladbach, Germany
Christof Breckenfelder
Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences, Mönchengladbach, Germany
Marcus O. Weber
Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences, Mönchengladbach, Germany
Maik-Julian Büker
Fraunhofer Institute for Electronic Nano Systems – ENAS Department Smart Wireless Systems, Paderborn, Germany
Thomas Freitag
Steinbeis Innovationszentrum Energie- und Umwelttechnik (SIZ), Oelsnitz, Germany
Matthias Hummel
Hero-Textil AG, Crailsheim, Germany
Martin Zeitler
Hero-Textil AG, Crailsheim, Germany
Oliver van Neerven
Walther Faltsysteme GmbH, Kevelaer, Germany

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The figure demonstrates cross section of transport box where inside a textile materials is placed

Key Information

DOI

https://doi.org/10.25367/cdatp.v7.a150

Published

13 November 2026

How to Cite

Klausmann, J., Mutschler, T., Breckenfelder, C., Weber, M. O., Büker, M.-J., Freitag, T., … Neerven, O. van. (2026). Smart, knitted and volume-reducible transport box for electro-mobile, temperature-related pharmaceutical and vaccine logistics. Communications in Development and Assembling of Textile Products, 7, 76–85. https://doi.org/10.25367/cdatp.v7.a150

Abstract

Temperature-sensitive goods such as refrigerated and frozen goods pose particular challenges in terms of the availability of electrical energy and energy efficiency. Against the backdrop of the mobility shift towards electric vehicles and the current challenges of temperature-stable transport of pharmaceutical products, research was conducted into high-performance, new vehicle equipment for maintaining cold chains. Typical vehicle equipment concepts are only partially transferable to electric delivery vehicles, where the entire cargo compartment is usually air-conditioned. In addition, the goods cannot be removed from the vehicle while maintaining the cold chain. Known concepts for active cooling of transport boxes are very energy-intensive, expensive and can only be used for specific purposes. For this reason, a textile, modular and volume-reducible transport box with active cooling function was developed, which corresponds to the dimension of the usual transport container according to EU standards. By using this textile box insert, the standard transport container can be upgraded to a cooling box as required. The knitted textile insert assumes the function of an insulating layer. Moreover, this box-in-box system forms the basic unit of an overall logistics concept. By docking the box to an external cooling system via an integrated shelf system in the cargo hold, active and individual cooling is realized for each box. Via a sensor inside the box, data is permanently recorded, enabling constant temperature monitoring, controlling and regulation. An energy-efficient smart label on the outside of the box allows data such as temperature, destination and contents of the box to be accessed. This provides information about the quality of the refrigeration and errors in the supply chain. In the context of the overall system, the completely digitized refrigerated transport container offers an optimal interface towards the autonomous logistics vehicle. This paper presents the box-in-box system and the sensor technology.
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References

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.25367/cdatp.v7.a150

Published

13 November 2026

Issue

Vol. 7 (2026)

Section

Peer-reviewed articles

Keywords

Cold chain maintenance, logistics, knitted spacer fabric, transport container, volume-reducible box, textile insulation, RFID tags, temperature tracking

How to Cite

Klausmann, J., Mutschler, T., Breckenfelder, C., Weber, M. O., Büker, M.-J., Freitag, T., … Neerven, O. van. (2026). Smart, knitted and volume-reducible transport box for electro-mobile, temperature-related pharmaceutical and vaccine logistics. Communications in Development and Assembling of Textile Products, 7, 76–85. https://doi.org/10.25367/cdatp.v7.a150

Pages

76-85

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Julia Klausmann, Thomas Mutschler, Christof Breckenfelder, Marcus O. Weber, Maik-Julian Büker, Thomas Freitag, Matthias Hummel, Martin Zeitler, Oliver van Neerven

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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