Janus Membrane Decorated by MXene Multilayered Nanoflakes for Wet-Thermal Management

Personal wet-thermal management, which focuses on adjusting the moisture and temperature in a human skinwearable fabric-external environment microclimate system, is the basis for ensuring the comfort of human beings and has recently attracted tremendous attention owing to its substantial significant role not only in ameliorating the health conditions but also in smart textiles for personal protection, electronic wearable devices, health monitoring, and so on. However, wearable fabrics focusing on personal comfort, especially wet-thermal dual-mode management, viz., including both efficient sweat removal and heat retention performances that provide protection for outdoor sports or work in a cold environment, still present huge challenges in their design, fabrication, and practical application. A Janus membrane with asymmetric wettability (superhydrophobic/hydrophobic-superhydrophilic/hydrophilic) along the thickness direction shows a unique directional water transport capacity, acts as a water transport diode, and is expected to be helpful to expel sweat/moisture efficiently from the human body to the external environment. Herein, we fabricated a hydrophobic/hydrophilic Janus membrane decorated by MXene (Ti3C2Tx) multilayered nanoflakes with outstanding photothermal conversion capacity via facile electrospinning combined with in situ polymerization. By virtue of asymmetric wettability and directional wicking, water and moisture can be driven from the hydrophobic layer to the hydrophilic layer, providing the Janus membrane with excellent directional water and moisture transport capacity. Furthermore, the successful decoration of MXene multilayered nanoflakes imparts electricalpower-independent heat retention capacity to the Janus membrane, resulting from the excellent photothermal conversion capacity of MXene. This work provides an insight into the facile design of Janus membranes for wet-thermal management and establishes a promising strategy not only to maintain personal comfort to ameliorate the health conditions as well as to improve the work efficiency of outdoor laborers in a cold environment but also to guarantee the special functions of smart wearable and multifunctional fabrics.

Automated summary

Personal wet-thermal management is crucial for ensuring human comfort and has attracted significant attention in recent years. However, designing wearable fabrics that provide both efficient sweat removal and heat retention poses challenges in their design, fabrication, and practical application. In this study, a Janus membrane with asymmetric wettability was fabricated, which exhibited excellent directional water and moisture transport capacity due to its unique water transport diode properties. Additionally, the incorporation of MXene nanoflakes imparted electrical power-independent heat retention capacity to the membrane, enhancing its overall performance.