Stanford University developed a new cooling fabric

Scientists at Stanford University in the United States have recently developed a low-cost plastic material that can be used in clothing to make the wearer feel cool, thereby reducing people's dependence on air conditioning in hot weather and reducing energy waste.

This material helps the wearer's body release heat in two ways, with a temperature difference of up to 4 degrees Fahrenheit.

The study was helped by the San Diego supercomputer Comet, which is now published in Science.

Traditional fabrics cool down by evaporating sweat, and the cooling mechanism of this new material is to let the body's heat radiate through the plastic material in the form of infrared radiation.

All objects, including the human body, emit heat in the form of infrared radiation, an invisible, benign light wave. A blanket is a way to make us feel warm by capturing the heat radiated from the infrared radiation close to the body. Scientists say that this kind of heat radiation diverging from the body can be observed in the dark through night vision goggles.

Yi Cui, an associate professor of materials physics and engineering at Stanford University, is the principal person in charge of the project. He said that if the summer can make people feel cool directly, rather than the environment, it will save a lot of energy using air conditioners.

Shanhui Fan (focusing on optoelectronics, visible light and invisible light), a joint researcher and electrical engineering expert in the project, said: "When we are sitting in the office, 40% to 60% of the body's heat is diverging in the form of infrared radiation. So far, there have been very few designs and studies on the thermal radiation characteristics of textiles. By adjusting various parameters, we can determine the range of textile pore size. The most suitable one is a nanopore, which looks opaque but hot. The wavelength range of radiation is again highly transparent."

Team member Po-Chun Hsu said that the researchers used computer models as a guide to find that polyethylene variants commonly used in battery manufacturing have specific nanostructures that are opaque to visible light but transparent to infrared radiation, allowing the body to dissipate heat. They have improved this industrial polyethylene so that water vapor molecules can also evaporate through the nanopores in the plastic.

Researchers are currently working on several other areas, including adding more color and texture to their materials to make the material look more cloth-like.