Bioinspired hollow porous fibers with low emissivity and conductivity aluminum platelet skin for thermal insulation

Traditional porous aerogel fibrous textiles are commonly used for personal thermal insulation, owing to their low thermal conductivity. However, lot of heat will dissipate to the environment via infrared (IR) radiation when human body heat transfers to textiles via conduction. Although some metallic materials with low IR emissivity are used to reduce the IR-induced heat loss, high thermal conductivity, high cost and poor wearability limit their application in textiles. Therefore, it remains a great challenge to realize personal thermally insulating materials through simultaneous low thermal conductivity and low IR emissivity to maximally reduce heat loss. Here, inspired by sunlight shielding Saharan silver ant hairs and thermally insulating polar bear hairs, we present a coaxial wet spinning strategy to produce elastic hollow porous polyurethane fibers with reflective thin aluminum platelet skin. The textile presents thermal insulation properties through low thermal conductivity (similar to 0.049 W m(-1) K-1) and IR emissivity (similar to 0.36). This work provides a promising direction for developing the next generation of high-performance thermal insulation fiber textiles, providing people with warmer microclimates and decreasing depletion of resources to achieve global sustainable development.

Automated summary

Traditional porous aerogel fibrous textiles are commonly used for thermal insulation. However, heat loss through infrared radiation remains a challenge. In this study, inspired by Saharan silver ant hairs and polar bear hairs, elastic hollow porous polyurethane fibers with reflective thin aluminum platelet skin were developed. These fibers have low thermal conductivity and low infrared emissivity, making them a promising solution for high-performance thermal insulation textiles.