This piece of clothing made of polyethylene plastic has its own air conditioning effect

Although summer has passed, the autumn heat is coming fiercely. The sun is still scorching during the day. Friends in the factory have to endure the double torture of "machine baking" and "fire baking". At this time, if you have a piece of clothing that can cool down by evaporating sweat, you will be more motivated to work!

Source of materials

In layman's terms, this fabric is similar to the polyethylene plastic used in our daily kitchens. This raw material allows infrared radiation to pass through, but it is impermeable and transparent, and cannot be used to make clothes at all. However, researchers at Stanford University have combined nanotechnology, photonics technology and chemical technology to make up for the shortcomings of this polyethylene material.

Raw material transformation

They found a polyethylene material commonly used in battery manufacturing, which has a special nanostructure. It is opaque under visible light, but cannot block infrared radiation. Then, the researchers used a harmless chemical to make it water permeable, allowing water vapor molecules to pass through the nanopores of the material. In this way, the improved new material has three basic conditions as a clothing fabric: opaque under visible light, permeable and breathable, and allows thermal radiation to pass through.

To make this thin material more like clothing fabric, the researchers designed a three-layer fabric structure with a certain strength and thickness: two layers of polyethylene, separated by a cotton mesh in the middle.

Heat dissipation mechanism

The researchers pointed out that all objects, including the human body, dissipate heat in the form of infrared radiation. Clothing will limit the emission of body heat and make the skin feel warmer.

This new fabric uses a completely different cooling mechanism: it promotes body heat dissipation by reducing infrared radiation barriers, and does not use external energy, but achieves this goal by changing the infrared radiation penetration of the material.

Compared with cotton cloth of the same thickness, the new fabric has better heat dissipation performance: wearing clothes made of the new fabric will feel two degrees Celsius lower than wearing cotton clothes.

Little knowledge

Polyethylene is odorless, non-toxic, feels like wax, has excellent low temperature resistance (the lowest operating temperature can reach -100~-70°C), good chemical stability, and can withstand the erosion of most acids and alkalis (not resistant to acids with oxidizing properties). It is insoluble in general solvents at room temperature, has low water absorption, and has excellent electrical insulation.

Researchers at Stanford University in the United States have developed a new type of fabric that has better heat dissipation than all current natural or synthetic fabrics. They wrote in the magazine Science that wearing clothes made of this fabric in the summer will make you feel cool and comfortable even in an environment without air conditioning.

We look forward to next summer, when we can wear air conditioners and endure the scorching sun.