A Dual-Mode Textile for Year-Round Passive Thermal Regulation Combining Radiative Cooling and Solar Heating

Abstract

Maintaining a stable body temperature proves to be critical for human survival and functional capacity. However, conventional textiles exhibit significant limitations in preserving thermoregulatory microenvironments during dynamic climatic variations. Herein, we present a dual-mode textile (DMT) that combines radiative cooling and solar thermal harvesting technology to achieve year-round passive thermal regulation. The DMT cooling layer demonstrates an impressive performance with 96.1% solar reflectance and 92.0% mid-infrared emissivity. Under direct sunlight, it achieves an average temperature drop of 6.37 °C, corresponding to an average cooling power of 53.3 W/m². In heating mode, its high solar absorptivity of 90% results in an average temperature increase of 16.3 °C compared to that of ambient temperature. Additionally, the DMT demonstrated excellent mechanical properties and water vapor permeability. Real-world wear tests of the DMT shows a 2.3 °C temperature reduction compared to that of a plain white cotton T-shirt, along with excellent heating performance. Furthermore, simulations indicate that the DMT could cool by ∼5 °C in the summer and insulate by ∼13 °C in the winter compared to conventional clothing. On the whole, this work enables dynamic thermal management across varying conditions, introducing possibilities in the rational design of next-generation smart textiles.