Researchers Design T-shirt Fabric That Reduces Body Heat, Protecting People From Rising Temperatures

It’s easy enough to make clothes designed to keep you warm, whether it’s natural inspirations or synthetic designs, but making something designed to keep you cool is much more difficult.

While objects like cars and buildings can be coated with ultra-white paint or mirrors that reflect the sun’s rays, a pair of Chinese scientists have figured out how to make a normal T-shirt keep skin temperatures 5 ° C cooler.

Scientists say it can be mass produced at only a fractional increase in cost, promising a generation of outdoor workers or beach lovers a way to alleviate the effects of outright climate change.

Within the rays of the sun, the electromagnetic radiation of the near infrared (NIR) is a component that heats everything that the sun sets its gaze. They also cool when emitted, but if there is water vapor in the air, the NIRs are absorbed inside and keep the surrounding air temperature warm.

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Human skin naturally emits a different electromagnetic radiation, called mid-infrared, which instead of being trapped in water particles, comes out directly from our atmosphere.

Ma Yaoguang from Zhejiang University and Tao Guangming from Huazhong University of Science and Technology created a blend of synthetic fibers containing titanium dioxide particles to reflect NIR, and also containing polylactic acid which absorbs body heat and expels it through the shirt as MIR to cool the wearer.

When a researcher put on a vest, half of which was white cotton and the other half cooling cloth, thermal images showed that the part of his body under the artificial cloth remained 5 ° C (9 ° F) longer. cold after sitting on a lawn chair. in the sun for an hour.

Is there any doubt reports Sciences, whether the movement of the fabric will lessen the effect, since MIR emitting material of any type has only been tested when it lies flat and motionless towards the sun. A billowy T-shirt that curves up to the shoulders and arms of a human being can produce different results compared to a vertical midday sun.

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But scientists also noted that material and production costs are only a tenth higher than cotton, so anything that brings us closer to protective clothing during hot periods is really encouraging.

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