Robust and Flexible Multimaterial Aerogel Fabric Toward Outdoor Passive Heating

Outdoor passive heating to maintain a constant human body temperature is critical for human activities. However, most traditional energy-exhausted heating systems and inefficient passive heating technologies are incapable of dealing with the cold outdoor environment. Developing fabrics with low thermal radiation and conduction to passively heat the human body is a viable way to overcome the constraints of existing passive heating strategies. Herein, a multimaterial aerogel fabric was developed to realize passive personal heating without any energy input. The multimaterial aerogel fabric was fabricated by coating an Ag layer on an aerogel composite fabric. The lightweight aerogel composite fabric, woven from aerogel composite fibers with multi-scale porous structure, exhibits excellent thermal insulation, self-cleaning, mechanical and thermal stability. Furthermore, by coating with an Ag layer, the multimaterial aerogel fabric exhibits both low thermal conductivity and low infrared emissivity at 7–14 μm, demonstrating superior thermal insulating performance. As a result, the proposed multimaterial aerogel fabric with a thickness of only 1.29 mm is capable of improving the human body temperarure of 5.7 °C in a cold environment without energy input. This strategy offers a potential energy-saving alternative for future outdoor passive heating.Graphical abstract