Fundamentals, materials and strategies for personal thermal management by next-generation textiles

Heat stress affects personal health and curtails work productivity, resulting in adversely influencing the entire economy. With global warming and expected climate change, the world faces more frequent and intense heatwaves that may cause severe sustainability-related challenges. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop and promote efficient technologies to regulate personal thermal comfort under both indoor and outdoor conditions. Thermoregulation of the human body by using advanced personal thermal wears is one such promising technology, given the fact that it is a cheap and sustainable solution to overcome health hazards, environmental concerns and consequently a significant reduction in energy consumption on building cooling and heating. This paper reviews the research work related to personal thermal management and discusses its implications on personal comfort. Based on heat transfer mechanism and structural characteristics, we categorized the textiles based on passive heat dissipation (radiative sky cooling textiles, and thermal conductive textiles), active cooling/warming (air-cooled, water-cooled, PCMs-cooled and composite textiles), and responsive textiles (temperature/heat-responsive textiles and moisture-responsive textiles). Besides, this review puts forth an in-depth study on the advancements in personal thermal management along with the emerging materials, such as biomimetic materials, metamaterials, nanomaterials and nanocomposite, and it provides valuable insights regarding the barriers and scalability of such textiles.

Automated summary

Heat stress impacts personal health and work productivity, emphasizing the need for efficient technologies to regulate personal thermal comfort. Advanced personal thermal wears offer a promising solution to reduce energy consumption. The review categorizes textiles based on heat dissipation mechanisms and presents advancements in personal thermal management with emerging materials.