Multifunctional radiative cooling cellulose fabrics by in situ grown ZnO for personal thermal management

Abstract

Personal thermal management (PTM) textiles with cooling functions have garnered substantial interest because of their ability to regulate individuals’ temperature and provide comfort with low energy consumption. However, developing cellulose-based fabrics such as cotton with cooling functions remains a challenge due to the complex preparation process. Herein, a composite functional cellulosic fabric, based on cotton, is presented in this work to address the various inconveniences caused by hot weather. Controlled in situ growth of zinc oxide is achieved through hydrothermal synthesis. The ZnO nanorods deposited on the surface of the cotton fabric have excellent UV shielding ability and synergize solar reflection, resulting in a UPF value of 300 + for the modified fabric. Even after 100 friction cycles, this performance still reaches 80.25. The surface of the modified cotton fabric has a high solar reflectance (83.88%), a high thermal conductivity (98 W·m⁻²·K⁻¹), and a cooling effect of 3.0 °C, achieved in a simulated heating environment compared with the original cotton. Due to these excellent properties and simple preparation steps, the cool-feeling fabrics fabricated by in situ growth of ZnO nanorods on the surface of cotton fabrics have promising application prospects.