E-journal post #4 - Unit 8 (Innovations)

In the summer, most of people cannot wait 24 hours without the air conditioning. Even if people are wearing the light summer clothes, wearing them are too hot. What can be done to make it cooler in the summer? More recently, a new type of fabric published in the journal Science may be able to meet your requirements - it will be much cooler to wear than the regular clothing.

         Researchers at the Stanford University have innovated this super "cool" nano-porous polyethylene (NanoPE) fabric. It can be achieved with the traditional clothing material permeability and wearing resistance, but also allow people to maintain a more comfortable body surface temperature in the summer. In the simulation experiment, this new material showed excellent heat dissipation: the surface temperature will rise by 0.8 ° C after covering the NanoPE material on the simulated skin heating device. Under the same conditions, the cotton made the temperature increase of 3.5 ° C, a non-woven material also increased the temperature by 2.9 ° C.

The cool secret is that this material can block the visible light. At the same time, it can make the body's own heat radiation easily go through. In terms of heat radiation, the common fabrics such as cotton cloth are detrimental to heat dissipation. The human body constantly exudes heat radiation in the infrared band, and the general fabric will not only block the visible light, will also be intercepted by the heat radiation. The polyethylene film can make infrared light through, but it cannot directly be used to make clothes: it is the lack of ventilation, and visible light will go through. People cannot wear pieces of transparent clothes to hang out on the streets. This time, the NanoPE is supposed to retain the transmission of infrared light, at the same time, the polyethylene also has the potential to make clothing.

In the future, this material can not only be used as an excellent heat dissipation material to process all kinds of clothing, but also can be used in the tents in the field, and the open-air vehicle sunshade, and even can be used in the beer greenhouses and the other outdoor facilities. The good ability can also reduce the using needs of air conditioning, which is also very good for energy conservation.

Next, the researchers will pay attention to improving the comfort of this material, and let them become economical enough. With this new fabric, perhaps we do not have to open the air conditioning all day.