Thermal and Moisture Managing E-Textiles Enabled by Janus Hierarchical Gradient Honeycombs

Adv Mater. 2024 Mar;36(13):e2311633. doi: 10.1002/adma.202311633. Epub 2023 Dec 24.

Abstract

Moisture and thermal comfort are critical for long-term wear. In recent years, there has been rapidly growing attention on the importance of the comfortability in wearable electronic textiles (e-textiles), particularly in fields such as health monitoring, sports training, medical diagnosis and treatment, where long-term comfort is crucial. Nonetheless, simultaneously regulating thermal and moisture comfort for the human body without compromising electronic performance remains a significant challenge to date. Herein, a thermal and moisture managing e-textile (TMME-textile) that integrates unidirectional water transport and daytime radiative cooling properties with highly sensitive sensing performance is developed. The TMME-textile is made by patterning sensing electrodes on rationally designed Janus hierarchical gradient honeycombs that offer wetting gradient and optical management. The TMME-textile can unidirectionally pump excessive sweat, providing a dry and comfortable microenvironment for users. Moreover, it possesses high solar reflectivity (98.3%) and mid-infrared emissivity (89.2%), which reduce skin temperature by ≈7.0 °C under a solar intensity of 1 kW m-2. The TMME-textile-based strain sensor displays high sensitivity (0.1749 kPa-1) and rapid response rate (170 ms), effectively enabling smooth long-term monitoring, especially during high-intensity outdoor sports where thermal and moisture stresses are prominent challenges to conventional e-textiles.

Keywords: directional water transport; electronic textiles; radiative cooling; sports monitoring; thermal and moisture management.

MeSH terms

  • Cold Temperature*
  • Humans
  • Skin Temperature*
  • Sunlight
  • Textiles
  • Wettability