Radiative Cooling Nanofabric for Personal Thermal Management

A wearable textile that is engineered to reflect incoming sunlight and allow the transmission of mid-infrared radiation simultaneously would have a great impact on the human body's thermal regulation in an outdoor environment. However, developing such a textile is a tough challenge. Using nanoparticle-doped polymer (zinc oxide and polyethylene) materials and electrospinning technology, we have developed a nanofabric with the desired optical properties and good applicability. The nanofabric offers a cool fibrous structure with outstanding solar reflectivity (91%) and mid-infrared transmissivity (81%). In an outdoor field test under exposure of direct sunlight, the nanofabric was demonstrated to reduce the simulated skin temperature by 9 °C when compared to skin covered by a cotton textile. A heat-transfer model is also established to numerically assess the cooling performance of the nanofabric as a function of various climate factors, including solar intensity, ambient air temperature, atmospheric emission, wind speed, and parasitic heat loss rate. The results indicate that the nanofabric can completely release the human body from unwanted heat stress in most conditions, providing an additional cooling effect as well as demonstrating worldwide feasibility. Even in some extreme conditions, the nanofabric can also reduce the human body's cooling demand compared with traditional cotton textile, proving this material as a feasible solution for better thermoregulation of the human body. The facile fabrication of such textiles paves the way for the mass adoption of energy-free personal cooling technology in daily life, which meets the growing demand for healthcare, climate change, and sustainability.

Spectrally Selective Nanocomposite Textile for Outdoor Personal Cooling

Outdoor heat stress poses a serious public health threat and curtails industrial labor supply and productivity, thus adversely impacting the wellness and economy of the entire society. With climate change, there will be more intense and frequent heat waves that further present a grand challenge for sustainability. However, an efficient and economical method that can provide localized outdoor cooling of the human body without intensive energy input is lacking. Here, a novel spectrally selective nanocomposite textile for radiative outdoor cooling using zinc oxide nanoparticle-embedded polyethylene is demonstrated. By reflecting more than 90% solar irradiance and selectively transmitting out human body thermal radiation, this textile can enable simulated skin to avoid overheating by 5-13 °C compared to normal textile like cotton under peak daylight condition. Owing to its superior passive cooling capability and compatibility with large-scale production, this radiative outdoor cooling textile is promising to widely benefit the sustainability of society in many aspects spanning from health to economy.

Characterization of the 3Dimension optical, geometrical, and mechanical profiles of iPP fiber with necking deformation

We present a method for evaluating the 3D refractive indices and 3D true stress and/or 3D true strain profiles of "isotactic polypropylene iPP" fibers during necking deformation. Observing the changes in geometrical shape during the deformation process is necessary to understand the mechanical performance of iPP fibers. 3D geometric shape profile and actual stress and strain profiles were measured for iPP fibers during the propagation of neck deformation. These measurements were performed with the aid of an in-situ opto- mechanical device to dynamically characterize different properties of fibers at different strain rates. A software image analysis program was used to calculate the 3D opto-mechanical properties of iPP fibers. The obtained results show that the used dynamic stretching device can be easily used to monitor the deformation process with high accuracy. The effective stress and strain can be determined from the filaments profile. For illustration microinterferograms are given.

Direct deflection method for determining refractive-index profiles of polymer optical fiber preforms

We present a method for determining the refractive-index profile of polymer optical fiber preforms through a direct-deflection measurement. The method is simple to use, compact, and has good resolution. The profile is obtained from the deflection data by numerically integrating the differential-ray equation for a radial refractive-index gradient. Corrections for topographical deviations are also discussed. Results for both graded-index and step-index fibers are presented.