Nanoporous polyethylene microfibres for large-scale radiative cooling fabric

Global warming and energy crises severely limit the ability of human civilization to develop along a sustainable path. Increasing renewable energy sources and decreasing energy consumption are fundamental steps to achieve sustainability. Technological innovations that allow energy-saving behaviour c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature sustainability 2018-02, Vol.1 (2), p.105-112
Main Authors: Peng, Yucan, Chen, Jun, Song, Alex Y., Catrysse, Peter B., Hsu, Po-Chun, Cai, Lili, Liu, Bofei, Zhu, Yangying, Zhou, Guangmin, Wu, David S., Lee, Hye Ryoung, Fan, Shanhui, Cui, Yi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Alternative energy
Climate change
Cooling
Cooling systems
Cotton
Energy conservation
Energy consumption
Energy resources
Fabrics
Global warming
Innovation
Innovations
Polyethylene
Renewable energy
Renewable energy sources
Sustainability
Sustainable development
Sustainable energy
Technological change
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Summary:Global warming and energy crises severely limit the ability of human civilization to develop along a sustainable path. Increasing renewable energy sources and decreasing energy consumption are fundamental steps to achieve sustainability. Technological innovations that allow energy-saving behaviour can support sustainable development pathways. Energy-saving fabrics with a superior cooling effect and satisfactory wearability properties provide a novel way of saving the energy used by indoor cooling systems. Here, we report the large-scale extrusion of uniform and continuous nanoporous polyethylene (nanoPE) microfibres with cotton-like softness for industrial fabric production. The nanopores embedded in the fibre effectively scatter visible light to make it opaque without compromising the mid-infrared transparency. Moreover, using industrial machines, the nanoPE microfibres are utilized to mass produce fabrics. Compared with commercial cotton fabric of the same thickness, the nanoPE fabric exhibits a great cooling power, lowering the human skin temperature by 2.3 °C, which corresponds to a greater than 20% saving on indoor cooling energy. Besides the superior cooling effect, the nanoPE fabric also displays impressive wearability and durability. As a result, nanoPE microfibres represent basic building blocks to revolutionize fabrics for human body cooling and pave an innovative way to sustainable energy.Energy-saving innovations, such as fabrics with cooling effects, contribute to sustainability. This study reports the large-scale extrusion of uniform and continuous nanoporous polyethylene microfibres with cotton-like softness for wearable fabrics. The fabric can lower human skin temperature by 2.3 °C with over 20% savings on indoor cooling energy.
ISSN:2398-9629
2398-9629
DOI:10.1038/s41893-018-0023-2