Abstract
Three-dimensionally conformal porous microstructured fabrics (3CPMFs) are a new kind of modified fabrics with three-dimensionally conformal porous microstructures of introduced materials recently developed for wearable technology. They can effectively introduce customized functional performance based on the choice of brick materials, while at the same time maintain the excellent inherent properties of textiles. In this paper, based on the introduction of polystyrene with low thermal conductivity at only 8 × 10−4 g cm−2, we developed a kind of polyester fabric-based 3CPMF with enhanced thermal insulation, while maintaining its unique fabric texture, flexibility, moisture permeability, and light weight. It was demonstrated to be a good textile material for the fabrication of wearable electrothermal textile (ET) devices with enhanced thermal management. Compared to pristine fabric-based ET devices, this kind of 3CPMF-based ET devices can obtain higher temperatures under the same input power to provide thermal comfort for human beings, while saving more electric power to achieve the same thermal equilibrium temperature. We believe that, based on the choice of different functional materials and textiles, a wide range of 3CPMFs with customized functionalities and properties can be designed and developed for the realization of a brand-new class of truly wearable devices with desired functional performance and daily garment-like safety and comfort.
Highlights
Electrothermal textiles (ETs) are a kind of smart electronic device mainly based on Joule heating for the thermal management of target objects [1]
We have innovatively developed a nature-inspired approach of using breath figures (BFs) for direct surface modification of textile substrates with novel three-dimensionally conformal porous microstructures and showed their promising applications in the incorporation of functional materials for the photocatalytic degradation of pollutants [7]
A kind of 3CPMF was first prepared via the BF technique using only commercially available polystyrene (PS) and polyester (PET) fabric
Summary
Electrothermal textiles (ETs) are a kind of smart electronic device mainly based on Joule heating for the thermal management of target objects [1] One of their significant applications is to provide thermal comfort. A common strategy is to embed flexible conductive materials into textile materials by knitting or weaving the ETs with a loose structure [2,3] This kind of treatment can make the wearers feel comfortable like they are wearing common clothes, but at the same time it inevitably results in a low heating efficiency for the ETs due to high emissivity. Polymers 2018, 10, 748 or silver nanowires) onto the surface of fabrics by dip coating them, in order to decrease the pore size of the fabric textures [4,5,6] This approach can endow common fabrics with Joule heating capability, and effectively decrease the human body radiation by reflection while maintaining the water vapor permeability. We design and develop a unique kind of desired textile, i.e., three-dimensionally conformal porous microstructured fabrics (3CPMFs), for the development of truly safe and comfortable ETs with enhanced thermal management
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