Abstract
The integration of advanced materials and intelligent technologies is transforming sustainable engineering by enabling resource-efficient manufacturing, adaptive systems, real-time monitoring, and improved human–machine interaction. Conventional engineering approaches often rely on resource-intensive materials, energy-consuming processes, and limited monitoring capabilities, creating environmental and operational challenges throughout product life cycles. Advanced materials, including conductive polymers, nanofibers, stimuli-responsive polymers, shape-memory materials, photovoltaic fibers, and flexible electronic structures, offer opportunities to address these challenges through multifunctionality, lightweight design, and improved system adaptability. Concurrently, intelligent technologies, such as embedded sensors, digital monitoring systems, data-driven decision support, and connected wearable devices, support more efficient resource utilization and condition-based operation. Smart textiles provide a particularly relevant example because they combine material innovation with sensing, communication, energy harvesting, and user-oriented functionality. Applications in healthcare, industrial safety, energy management, environmental monitoring, and engineering education demonstrate the interdisciplinary potential of these technologies. However, their sustainable implementation requires careful consideration of material toxicity, manufacturing energy, durability, washability, electronic waste, recyclability, data privacy, and economic accessibility. This paper presents a literature-based technical review of advanced materials and intelligent technologies for sustainable engineering applications. It examines material characteristics, technological integration, application domains, environmental considerations, and implementation barriers. It also discusses life-cycle assessment, circular product design, sustainability-oriented engineering education, and challenge-based learning as complementary strategies for responsible innovation. The review indicates that technological performance alone is insufficient to establish sustainability; environmental integrity, human well-being, economic feasibility, and end-of-life management must be considered together. An integrated framework combining sustainable material selection, intelligent system design, lifecycle evaluation, and interdisciplinary education is proposed to guide future research and engineering practice.