New fabric could help you stay cool in the summer, even without A / C

According to the US Energy Information Administration, air conditioning and other space cooling methods account for about 10% of all electricity consumption in the US Now, researchers report in Applied materials and ACS interfaces They have developed a material that cools the user without using electricity. The fabric transfers heat, allows moisture to evaporate from the skin, and repels water. Watch a video about the new fabric here.

Cooling a person’s body is much more efficient than cooling an entire room or building. Various clothing and textiles have been designed to do just that, but most have downsides, such as poor cooling capacity; great consumption of electricity; complex and slow manufacturing; and / or high cost. Yang Si, Bin Ding and their colleagues wanted to develop a personal cooling fabric that could efficiently transfer body heat, while being breathable, water-repellent, and easy to make.

The researchers made the new material by electrospinning a polymer (polyurethane), a water-repellent version of the polymer (fluorinated polyurethane), and a heat-conducting charge (boron nitride nanoblades) on nanofiber membranes. These membranes repel water from the outside, but have pores large enough to allow sweat to evaporate from the skin and circulate air. Boron nitride nanoblades coated the polymer nanofibers, forming a network that conducted heat from an internal source to the outside air. In tests, thermal conductivity was higher than that of many other high-tech or conventional fabrics. The researchers say the membrane could be useful not only for personal cooling, but also for solar energy harvesting, seawater desalination, and thermal management of electronic devices.