Nanoporous fabrics could keep you cool
Name
CoolingFabricsPerspective_SVBoriskina_submitted.pdf
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554.83 KB
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Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
6ed973d823f762836a387e27bf42dfc6
Author(s)
Boriskina, Svetlana V
Date Issued
September 2016
Journal
Science
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Citation
Boriskina, Svetlana V. “Nanoporous Fabrics Could Keep You Cool.” Science 353, no. 6303 (September 1, 2016): 986–987.
Version
Original manuscript
Abstract
From early days when animal skins were the season's fashion until modern times, clothes have been typically engineered for comfort in cold environments by tailoring their thermal conduction. Air pockets in feathers, furs, and woolen fabrics help reduce thermal conduction and keep warmth inside. Cooling, however, is much harder to achieve without the use of external active devices such as fans, air conditioners, or wearable thermoelectric coolers. The wicking technology used in modern athletic apparel to enhance convective cooling is not ideal for everyday clothes because it only works once perspiration begins. On page 1019 of this issue, Hsu et al. (1) report passive cooling of an object by a few Celsius degrees by simply allowing thermal radiation to pass efficiently through a nanoporous fabric. This demonstration may make possible wearable technologies for personalized cooling and paves the way for energy savings by reduced use of air conditioning.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aah5577
