Highly Regulatable Heat Conductance of Graphene–Sericin Hybrid for Responsive Textiles

• Published in: Advanced functional materials Vol. 32; no. 17
• Main Authors: Liang, Xiaoping, Fan, Aoran, Li, Zhen, Wei, Ning, Fan, Wei, Liang, Huarun, Wang, Haomin, Bi, Peng, Li, Shuo, Wu, Xun‐En, Lu, Haojie, Hao, Qing, Zhang, Xing, Zhang, Yingying
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.04.2022
• Subjects: Dehydration; Energy consumption; Free convection; Graphene; heat management; Heat transfer; Humidity; Materials science; sericin; Silk; smart textiles; Textiles; Thermal conductivity; thermal regulator
• ISSN: 1616-301X; 1616-3028
• DOI: 10.1002/adfm.202111121

Advanced heat‐managing textiles not only improve the comfort of individual but also reduce the energy consumption of the heat‐managing systems of building. To meet the demand of heat‐managing in a dynamic environment, responsive textiles with tunable thermal convection and radiation have been developed, while the design of fabrics with tunable thermal conduction remains unexplored. Here, a humidity‐driven and flexible thermal conductance regulating material is developed that shows an unprecedented switching ratio up to 14×, which is composed of brick‐and‐mortar structured graphene and silk sericin (GS). This work investigates the microstructure variation in response to humidity experimentally and theoretically. The regulation can be ascribed to the hydration/dehydration of sericin and the subsequent changing in graphene–sericin interfacial thermal conductance. It is demonstrated that the GS can be facilely coated on ordinary textiles through dyeing to achieve responsive thermal‐managing clothes with a significant and reversible response toward the variation of environment humidity. The thermal conductance of graphene–sericin hybrid is regulatable by varying humidity and the switching ratio is up to 14×, which can be attributed to the dependence of interfaces on the hydration state. Smart textiles decorated with the hybrid show fast and reversible regulation in thermal resistance, exhibiting potential applications in dynamic heat management.