An all-weather radiative human body cooling textile

• Published in: Nature sustainability 2023-11, Vol.6 (11), p.1446-1454
• Main Authors: Wu, Xueke, Li, Jinlei, Jiang, Qinyuan, Zhang, Wenshuo, Wang, Baoshun, Li, Run, Zhao, Siming, Wang, Fei, Huang, Ya, Lyu, Pei, Zhao, Yanlong, Zhu, Jia, Zhang, Rufan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 639/301/1019/1015; 639/624/399/1028; Cooling; Design; Earth and Environmental Science; Environment; Human body; Indoor environments; Outdoors; Protective clothing; Sustainable Development; Textile design; Textiles
• ISSN: 2398-9629; 2398-9629
• DOI: 10.1038/s41893-023-01200-x

Radiative cooling textiles dissipate human body heat without any energy input, providing a sustainable means for personal thermal management. However, there is still a lack of textile materials to support efficient cooling in varied outdoor and indoor environments. Here we show a polyoxymethylene (POM) nanotextile design that not only achieves selective emission in the atmospheric window (8–13 μm) but also shows transmission in the remaining mid-infrared wavebands and reflection of sunlight (0.3–2.5 μm). As a result, the POM textile achieves efficient radiative human body cooling both outdoors (under sunny and cloudy conditions) and indoors (0.5–8.8 °C lower than typical textiles). Moreover, the textile design shows favourable wearability and outperforms its commercial counterparts when used as protective clothing. The POM material provides both indoor and outdoor human body cooling and introduces new possibilities in the rational design of next-generation smart textiles and other applications supporting sustainability. Radiative cooling textiles provide a sustainable means for personal thermal management. Here the nano-textile design realizes an unprecedented combination of human body cooling in both indoor and outdoor conditions without compromising wearability.