Climate change and high temperatures are increasingly affecting human life. Especially in the warmer ...
Climate change and high temperatures are increasingly affecting human life. Especially in the warmer months, using air conditioning and clothing with cool fabrics may no longer be enough. In Mexico, India, Pakistan, and Oman, temperatures have been reported to exceed 50 degrees Celsius, and it is predicted that by 2050 the majority of the world's population will move from rural areas to cities and towns, increasing in density and living in the areas most "suffering" in part from the heat emitted by concrete from streets and buildings.
From a study and research carried out by the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, researchers have developed a new material, a polymer-based multilayer, to deal comprehensively with rising temperatures and heat waves.
This material has multiple uses; it can be suitable as a fabric for both clothing and automobiles, but it is also suitable for food preservation and in building design.
It is an innovative material that has shown significant results against direct solar heating, "decreasing" the perception by 2.3 degrees Celsius compared to traditional fabrics worn in outdoor endurance sports and as much as 8.9 degrees compared to silk.
"We need to reduce carbon emissions and make our cities carbon negative or carbon neutral," said Po-Chun Hsu, author of the study, "but in the meantime, people are feeling the impact of these high temperatures."
In fact, the consequences especially for older people who are already suffering from other health conditions are severe, often necessitating hospitalization and sometimes even resulting in death from circulatory and pulmonary disorders.
Co-author Chenxi Sui, speaking of the difficulties in creating a material that can totally protect people who wear it, explained that the fabric created is challenging to make because it must protect against both sunlight and thermal radiation.
"Sunlight is visible, while thermal radiation is infrared, so they have different wavelengths. This means you need to have a material that has two optical properties at the same time. You need to play with materials science to design and tune the material to get different resonances at different wavelengths."
But in addition to textiles, the material would be usable on both buildings and automobiles, helping to lower indoor temperatures and reducing the use and thus also the cost of air conditioning.
"It will be possible to save the expense cooling, energy and electricity as it is a passive process," the researchers said.
The materials used feature a polymer layer of polymethylpentene (PMP) that selectively reflects solar infrared radiation, an intermediate layer of silver nanowires that repels incoming thermal radiation, and a layer of wool in contact with the skin that moves heat from the skin to the intermediate layer.
The fabric was tested on a radiator to simulate the effect on a human body, and the experiment recorded a temperature reduction of 2.6 °C compared with cotton. A volunteer tested the fabric on his own forearm, and the temperature difference between the new fabric and cotton turns out to be 1.8 °C.
Further developments and confirmations from the research are now awaited so that the prototype can soon be transformed into a material and then fabric, and can then be put into industrial production and thus available to everyone on our planet.
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