New plastic clothing fabric can automatically cool down when worn

American scientists recently developed a new, low-cost plastic textile that can automatically lower a person’s body surface temperature.

An engineer from the American “Science” magazine said in an interview with AFP that the emergence of this fabric means that people in high-temperature environments can still feel cool even without air conditioning.

Yi Cui, an associate professor of materials science and photonic science at Stanford University, said this is a way to save energy and keep cool. This group of researchers applied nanotechnology, photonics and chemical technologies to develop this new type of textile fabric, which works together to reduce body temperature in two ways:

1) This kind of fabric can evaporate human sweat efficiently just like cotton;

2) At the same time, this fabric has the typical characteristics of polyethylene materials – a transparent, tightly-fitting plastic material that is often used as a plastic wrap in the kitchen. Ordinary clothing fabrics block infrared light waves from being released around the body, but this new material allows infrared rays to pass through easily and promotes heat dissipation. (All objects, including our bodies, emit infrared rays and release heat.)

A professor of electrical engineering at Stanford said that when people sit in the office, 40 to 60% of the body’s heat is taken away through infrared radiation. However, there are currently very few research results on thermal radiation in the field of textiles.

To test the cooling ability of the fabric, the researchers placed the plastic fabric and ordinary cotton fabric samples on the same piece of bare skin to test changes in body surface temperature. Test results show that the body surface temperature under cotton fabrics is 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the body surface temperature under new fabrics. It is believed that people wearing this new type of plastic fabric clothing will be significantly less dependent on air conditioners and fans.

The researchers said they will further optimize the color, texture and pattern of this new fabric. They said that the advent of a new type of fabric means that production must be quantified and the price must be kept low.

Source: Luxe.Co