MOF-Integrated Hierarchical Composite Fiber for Efficient Daytime Radiative Cooling and Antibacterial Protective Textiles.

Abstract

Incorporating passive radiative cooling into textiles is an effective way to improve individual personalized thermophysiological comfort for the human body. Based on radiative cooling textile design, rational functionalization further facilitates practical applications, especially for medical protective products with customized requirements. Herein, we present a hierarchical polyurethane/metal-organic framework (MOF) composite nanofiber membrane with an integrated radiative cooling effect and photocatalytic antibacterial property. Fabricated by a scalable electrospinning method, the hierarchical nanofiber membrane shows high solar reflectance of 97% and improved thermal emissivity of 93% attributed to the abundant chemical bonds in ZIF-8 nanoparticles, rendering a temperature drop of ∼7.2 °C under direct sunlight and ∼5.5 °C at night. In addition, the photocatalytic activity of ZIF-8 ensures a 96% bacterial mortality rate for preventing bacterial infection. In practical application, our composite fabric can prevent superheating by 4.4 °C compared with the traditional protective suit under direct sunlight. Along with its anti-infection ability, the composite fabric is desirable for medical protective textiles. The innovative integration of passive radiative cooling design and functional MOFs breaks through the traditional cooling mode and provides huge substantial advantages for smart textiles and personal cooling applications.