In a first, researchers develop fabric that automatically cools or heats

Making clothing smarter, scientists have now invented a type of adaptable fabric that can adjust to hot or cold temperatures depending on conditions and can realize the body temperature fluctuations before people themselves.

Researchers from the University of Maryland have developed a material that can sense how warm a person’s body is and then automatically adjust how much heat it traps or releases.

The team believes that clothes made of this fabric would be able to automatically react to infrared radiation, which is the human body’s main way of releasing heat, and let it pass through to the outside air, reported New Atlas.

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To accomplish this task, the fibers are made of two different synthetic materials coated in carbon nanotubes – one absorbs water, and the other repels it. The idea is that when water (i.e. sweat) gets absorbed by half of each fiber, it distorts the fibers so they come closer together. This allows the fabric to cool the wearer in two ways at once.

First, it opens up the pores of the material, letting more heat to escape. Secondly, more active cooling comes from bringing the carbon nanotubes close together. This changes the electromagnetic coupling hence, ‘tuning’ the nanotubes to absorb more than 35% infrared radiation and draw away more heat from water.

In simpler terms, when conditions are warm and moist like those near a sweating body, the fabric allows infrared radiation (heat) to pass through. When the conditions become cooler and drier, the fabric reduces the heat that escapes, explained Science Daily.

“You can think of this coupling effect like the bending of a radio antenna to change the wavelength or frequency it resonates with," says YuHuang Wang, corresponding author of the study published in the journal Science.

The researchers claim that this dynamic infrared gating makes the fabric the first ‘true bidirectional regulator’ of body heat and kicks in before the wearer even realizes they’re getting too hot.