Asymmetrical Emissivity and Wettability in Stitching Treble Weave Metafabric for Synchronous Personal Thermal‐Moisture Management

• Published in: Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) Vol. 19; no. 29; pp. e2300297 - n/a
• Main Authors: Li, Xiaoyan, Ji, Yating, Fan, Zhuizhui, Du, Peibo, Xu, Bi, Cai, Zaisheng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Germany Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.07.2023
• Subjects: Asymmetry; Capillarity; Cooling; Emissivity; Energy consumption; Fabric structures; Moisture effects; moisture‐wicking; Nanotechnology; Overheating; Radiation; Radiation effects; radiative cooling; radiative heating; Stitching; stitching treble weave metafabric; Synergistic effect; Textiles; Thermal management; Thermal radiation; Warp; Weft; Wettability; radiative cooling; stitching treble weave metafabric; asymmetry; radiative heating; moisture-wicking
• ISSN: 1613-6810; 1613-6829
• DOI: 10.1002/smll.202300297

Developing textiles with passive thermal management is an effective strategy to maintain the human body healthy as well as decrease energy consumption. Personal thermal management (PTM) textiles with engineered constituent element and fabric structure have been developed, however the comfortability and robustness of these textiles remains a challenge due to the complexity of passive thermal‐moisture management. Here a metafabric with asymmetrical stitching treble weave based on woven structure design and yarn functionalization is developed, in which the thermal radiation regulation and moisture‐wicking can be achieved simultaneously throughout the dual‐mode metafabric due to its optically regulated property, multi‐branched through‐porous structure and surface wetting difference. With simply flipping, the metafabric enables high solar reflectivity (87.6%) and IR emissivity (94%) in the cooling mode, and a low IR emissivity of 41.3% in the heating mode. When overheating and sweating, the cooling capacity reaches to ≈9 °C owing to the synergistic effect of radiation and evaporation. Moreover, the tensile strengths of the metafabric are 46.18 MPa (warp direction) and 37.59 MPa (weft direction), respectively. This work provides a facile strategy to fabricate multi‐functional integrated metafabrics with much flexibility and thus has great potential for thermal management applications and sustainable energy. The dual‐mode metafabric with different emissivity and wettability on both sides is fabricated. It displayed high solar reflectivity (87.6 %) and emissivity (94 % of nanoprocessed PLA side and 41.3 % of SPPA side). Compared with the cotton fabric, the temperature of the metafabric can be higher ≈3.5 °C (heating mode) and lower ≈6.5 °C (cooling mode), and it is ≈9 °C cooler when sweat evaporation. It also exhibited desirable mechanical strength, breathability and durability required for garments, as well as the Joule heating properties.