A wearable textile with superb thermal functionalities and durability towards personal thermal management

Abstract

As the enhanced frequency and intensity of extreme cold weather events, it is of substantial importance to ameliorate the personal thermal comfort for human health. However, developing effective technology with advanced thermal functionalities and durability to achieve the efficient personal thermal management (PTM) is still a challenge. Herein, we demonstrate a novel textile with asymmetric structure that not only possesses high-level solar and radiative heating but also presents excellent durability and wearability. The textile is realized via in-situ growing polypyrrole on cotton fibers for outer solar harvest, followed by depositing silver nanowires on one side for inner mid-infrared reflection, and consequent coating polydimethylsiloxane for durability. The designed textile ensures the maximum solar absorptivity of visible region (98.6 %) and mid-infrared reflectivity (76.3 %), effectively promoting the solar heating and restraining the radiation heat dissipation of human body. Contrast with pristine cotton fabric, wearing the textile can increase the temperature of human body by 2.0℃ without energy consumption. Moreover, the excellent Joule heating (∼137.0℃ at 3 V), electromagnetic interference shielding (67.0 dB), self-cleaning and antibacterial properties, breathability, and mechanical strength are also possessed by the textile. Impressively, after the damage of three external forces (abrasion, bending, and laundering), outstanding solar absorptivity, mid-infrared reflectivity, conductivity and hydrophobicity are reserved for the textile, indicating the excellent durability. With its superb passive heating functionalities and durability, the novel textile helps to achieve the ideal PTM and mitigate climate change.