A multimodal cooling garment for personal thermal comfort management

Abstract

Intelligent thermoregulation garments for personal thermal management (PTM) are essential to improve thermal comfort and reduce energy consumption. However, current attempts are unable to simultaneously address the aforementioned demands because of constraints including the environment, energy consumption, and wearing comfort. Here, we report a multi-effect cooling garment (MECG) with synergism regulation mechanism for personal thermal comfort management. By decently integrating radiative cooling fabrics, thermoelectric cooling devices, and heat transfer channels on textiles, MECG exhibits improved wearability and excellent personalized thermoregulation ability, not merely cooling function. Studies have demonstrated that MECG can greatly improve human thermal comfort and lessen the hot and sticky discomfort that comes with high temperatures. It is wirelessly controllable and can raise the air conditioning system's summertime setpoint temperature by about 4 °C. Owing to its exceptional thermal management performance and personalized thermoregulation ability, we expect the MECG concept to provide promising design guidelines for next-generation intelligent thermoregulation garments.