An energy-saving composite textile for thermal management

To reduce energy consumption, personal thermal management device has attracted great attention. Developing flexible fibers with low thermal conductivity or low emissivity is crucial but is still a great challenge. In this work, we developed a flexible and versatile composite textile with excellent passive and active heating capabilities. Via designing of the pore morphology and solid phase network, the aerogel textile of TPU/SiO2 (named as T-textile) is obtained with a low thermal conductivity of 0.037 W/mK. The T-textile also exhibits high flexibility with a fracture strain of 580%, while the low ductility is usually an issue for aerogel textures. Meantime, the conductive textile of TPU/Ag (S-textile) is fabricated with a low infrared emissivity of 0.40 and a high electric conductivity of 248.99 S/mm. The S-textile also possesses excellent electromagnetic shielding capability (above 75 dB). The simulated skin (∼27.4 °C) covered with layers of ST (S + T) and STT (S + T + T) textiles could be warmed to 32.6 °C and 35 °C, respectively. Also, with only 0.6 V, the simulated skin covered with S-textile could be heated to 50 °C, while with the TS textile (the ST textile flipped), it is 58 °C. The composite textile offers a combined solution for thermal insulation, Joule heating, flexibility, breathability and electromagnetic shielding capability, making it a smart personal thermal management device for complex scenarios.