A dynamic thermoregulatory material inspired by squid skin

Erica M Leung,Alon A Gorodetsky,Zhijing Feng,Alexandra L Vyatskikh,Emil Karshalev,Nicholas Garner,Steven R Jim,Priyam Patel,George T Stiubianu,Melvin Colorado Escobar,Matthew D Trexler,Maurizio Follador,Kyle L Naughton

doi:10.1038/s41467-019-09589-w

Erica M Leung, Alon A Gorodetsky + Show 11 more

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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09589-w

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Effective thermal management is critical for the operation of many modern technologies, such as electronic circuits, smart clothing, and building environment control systems. By leveraging the static infrared-reflecting design of the space blanket and drawing inspiration from the dynamic color-changing ability of squid skin, we have developed a composite material with tunable thermoregulatory properties. Our material demonstrates an on/off switching ratio of ~25 for the transmittance, regulates a heat flux of ~36 W/m2 with an estimated mechanical power input of ~3 W/m2, and features a dynamic environmental setpoint temperature window of ~8 °C. Moreover, the composite can manage one fourth of the metabolic heat flux expected for a sedentary individual and can also modulate localized changes in a wearer’s body temperature by nearly 10-fold. Due to such functionality and associated figures of merit, our material may substantially reduce building energy consumption upon widespread deployment and adoption.

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Effective thermal management is critical for the operation of many modern technologies, such as electronic circuits, smart clothing, and building environment control systems
Prior to any mechanical actuation, the nanostructure-anchored, infrared-reflecting metal domains are densely packed and completely cover the underlying matrix (Fig. 1f, left), in similar fashion to how expanded platelike chromatophores are overlapped in squid skin (Fig. 1d, left)
Our composites function via a unique but generalizable mechanism that relies on reversible, mechanically actuated changes in surface microstructure and, can be further optimized through the use of alternative infrared-reflecting metals/oxides, e.g., titanium dioxide, or other elastic infrared-transparent polymers, e.g., polyethylene derivatives. These stimuli-responsive materials alter their reflectance and transmittance within the thermal infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum and can adjust their thermoregulatory properties to resemble those of other common wearable materials, such as the space blanket, an Omniheat fleece lining, wool, and cotton

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Effective thermal management is critical for the operation of many modern technologies, such as electronic circuits, smart clothing, and building environment control systems. Effective management of heat transfer enables the operation of many ubiquitous modern technologies, including electronic circuits[1], aircraft and spacecraft components[2], clinical warming devices[3], power generation platforms[4], shipping and packaging containers[5], specialty textiles and garments[6], and building environment control systems[7]. Among active thermal management systems, recent state-ofthe-art efforts have focused on the development of components with switching capabilities[18,19,20] These devices consist of stimuliresponsive materials, e.g., metal oxide layers or conducting polymer films, which are placed within a gap or junction (Supplementary Table 2)[18,19,20]. The heat transferred through (by) the material is dynamically modulated (switched) with an external non-thermal input, e.g., a mechanical pressure or an applied voltage (Supplementary Table 2)[18,19,20]

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