The initial objective of Gorix Ltd was to create heat by electrical means from a group of specially developed textiles; textiles that do not rely on wires running through them, like the domestic electric blanket, but a textile that because of the way it is woven and then heat treated, emerges after processing endowed with a low ohmic resistance and naturally becomes hot when excited by low voltage electricity.

This material is now known world wide as Gorix Electro-Conductive Textile (E-CT). To develop a material with these qualities has been a painstaking exercise and a great deal of time and capital has been invested to advance the Gorix E-CT Heating Element, the Infra-Therm and AT-LAST (link to the veterinary & AT-LAST products page)range of products to their present level of efficiency. The range of products has been deliberately restricted as in common with all revolutionary concepts, it is far too easy to become locked into the path of continual development, with too little time being allocated to the real issue, of marrying products to profitable markets.

GORIX Electro-Conductive Textiles have been developed to meet the challenges presented by modern Thermo Engineering. For far too long, the Heating Engineer has been restrained by the limitations of "wire heating element technology". When exploring the concept of Electro Conductive Textiles, the aim was to create a type of heating element that would be flexible and capable of functioning with the aid of low voltage electricity.

Gorix Ltd was set up by co-founders John Gordon & Robert Rix and was named from a combination of their family names. Over the past 5 years, the Company's research and development program has produced a fully woven electrical conductor that will undoubtedly find a wide field of use in today's Hi-Tech world.

The first items to be manufactured were a range of Animal Husbandry products such as Heated Horse Blankets, Foal Rugs and Leggings, etc (link to the veterinary products page). Since then, a huge amount of development has taken place and many new heating applications have come to light.

During that development work it was realised that not only could Gorix be used as a form of heating element, but because of the very stable linear change in electrical resistance as a response to temperature change, the textile can be employed as a form of temperature sensor. Furthermore, because of the fact that the material is in an almost entirely carbonised form, the textile would not be degraded by heat.

A project to develop the principle of using the Gorix E-CT as part of a control system for a form of Heated Dive Suit was put forward to the Department of Trade & Industry as an entry in the annual DTI SMART Award competition. The entry was successful and commercialisation of the Heated Dive Suit quickly followed.

The ability of Gorix E-CT to act as a sensor will undoubtedly find applications where temperature control over large surface areas and with items that possess highly contoured surfaces are encountered, traditionally this problem has been overcome by using a number of multiple sensors such as thermistors. A problem often encountered with multiple thermistor arrays is that, localised hot spots on the object being sensed are difficult to detect, this type of problem can be eradicated with the aid of a textile sensor, as the object can be completely encompassed by the sensor.

The resistance change phenomenon presents possibilities to develop control circuits that were hitherto unachievable. The material is currently being assessed by several major corporations and will undoubtedly be of great benefit to users around the world.