Tailor-Made White Photothermal Fabrics: a Bridge between Pragmatism and Aesthetic.

Abstract

Maintaining human thermal comfort in cold wild is crucial for diverse outdoor activities, e.g., sports and recreation, health-care, and special occupations. To date, advanced clothes are employed to collect solar energy as heat source to stand cold climates, while their dull dark photothermal coating may hinder pragmatism in wild and visual sense considering fashion. Herein, tailor-made white webs with strong photothermal effect are proposed. With the embedding of Csx WO3 nanoparticles (NPs) as additive inside nylon nanofibers, these webs are capable of drawing both NIR and UV light in sunlight for heating. Their exceptional photothermal conversion capability enables 2.5-10.5°C warmer than that of a commercial sweatshirt of 6 times thicker under different climates. Remarkably, this smart fabric can increase its photothermal conversion efficiency in a wet state. It is optimal for fast sweat or water evaporation at human comfort temperature (38.5°C) under sunlight, and its role in thermoregulation is equally important to avoid excess heat loss in wilderness survival. Obviously, this smart web with considerable merits of shape retention, softness, safety, breathability, washability and on-demand coloration, provides a revolutionary solution to realize energy-saving outdoor thermoregulatory and simultaneously satisfy the needs of fashion and aesthetics. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.