Integrated cooling (i-Cool) textile of heat conduction and sweat transportation for personal perspiration management

Conventional textiles primarily focus on sweat removal, neglecting the thermoregulatory function of sweat evaporation. This paper introduces an integrated cooling (i-Cool) textile designed to enhance evaporation and cooling efficiency. By integrating heat conductive pathways and water transport channels, i-Cool demonstrates superior evaporation ability and sweat evaporative cooling efficiency compared to cotton, achieving a >100% reduction in water mass gain ratio and a threefold increase in skin power density increment per unit of sweat evaporation. Artificial sweating skin tests show a 3°C cooling effect with significantly reduced sweat consumption. The i-Cool design principles are validated using commercial fabrics, suggesting promising guidelines for next-generation perspiration management textiles.

Yucan Peng, Wei Li, Bofei Liu, Weiliang Jin, Joseph Schaadt, Jing Tang, Guangmin Zhou, Guanyang Wang, Jiawei Zhou, Chi Zhang, Yangying Zhu, Wenxiao Huang, Tong Wu, Kenneth E. Goodson, Chris Dames, Ravi Prasher, Shanhui Fan, Yi Cui