Clothes can automatically adjust the temperature to ensure that you are never too hot or too cold, and they can also reduce the earth’s energy use.
The earth’s climate seems to be getting more and more abnormal, and the law of cold in winter and hot in summer in a place seems to be increasingly unreliable. A few days ago, it was horribly hot, wearing short-sleeved shorts and taking a shower; suddenly the cold snapped, and it became cold in just one night, so I had to quickly find the long-length trousers jacket under the box. If you don’t pay attention to keeping warm properly, you are very likely to “offend” the flu virus.
Faced with the temperature that often changes your face, and you who don’t often check the weather forecast, do you find it a troublesome thing to carry your jacket with you often? Would you like to have clothes that can help you automatically adjust your body temperature, whether you are indoors or outdoors, and never have to experience the dilemma of ice and fire?
Comfortable temperature smart clothes
Now, there are tools that can help. Scientists are studying “magic clothing”, which can adapt to the thermal performance according to the environment and the wearer’s body temperature, by changing the structure of the clothing, or transferring heat to the body and taking away heat through some devices. No matter what the outside temperature is, clothes can keep people in a comfortable and pleasant state.
Changing heat energy through clothes can be achieved in three ways: one is conduction, which transfers heat by the interaction of atoms in a substance; the other is convection, when high-energy atoms move in the environment, convection can generate heat; the last is Radiation allows heat to move like electromagnetic waves, and it can also generate heat. Clothing can change the degree of air circulation in the human body, or transmit radiation to the human body, thereby controlling the body’s heat and helping you find the right temperature.
In order to control the air circulation of the human body, a research team at Cornell University used a series of tiny pipe networks embedded in the underwear to control the circulation of hot and cold air. On the outside, you can wear whatever you like.
The temperature sensor in the vest automatically senses the heat condition of the skin, and when you need it, it will blow warm or cool air to your body, which is like installing a small air conditioner next to your body.
A research team at the University of California in the United States took a different approach-trying to control radiant heat. This relatively novel idea was inspired by squid.
The squid is a cephalopod with some surprising camouflage skills. For example, they can use a mixed protein in the skin to change the wavelength of visible light reflected by themselves.
The team is studying substances similar to squid protein in an attempt to regulate the heat radiation of objects. They focused on the long-wave invisible light that carries heat—infrared light (the sun’s heat is mainly transmitted to the earth through infrared light), hoping to control the wavelength of infrared light to change the heat.
The heat of the soles is also the key
Another method is to increase the body’s own ability to regulate calories. For this reason, some researchers have focused on the hairless or hairless skin of the human body. In mammals, these hairless or less hairy areas act like a car radiator, helping heat escape from the surface of the skin. In the human body, the palms and soles of the feet play an important role in heat. They are equivalent to the heat sink of the human body, and scientists want to improve their capabilities.
In this regard, the researchers invented a “smart prototype shoe”, the shoe’s constituent materials include a plastic pump with a very good heat transfer effect. Therefore, when the body temperature is hot, the heat will spread through the soles of the feet, and when the body feels cold, it will conduct the heat to the soles of the feet.
In addition, there is also a kind of “Smartshoes” smart shoes. The wearer can control the heating system inside the shoes through the App on the mobile device, and automatically heat the inside of the shoes, up to 38℃, which is slightly higher than normal body temperature. It improves the comfort of wearing.
Great use of temperature-regulating clothing
In fact, clothes that can control heat have long existed. They are usually heavy or uncomfortable clothes used in military, aerospace, emergency services or laboratories. For example, in the spacesuit worn by astronauts, there are temperature-regulating clothing-using some liquid to conduct heat, but such clothing is quite heavy.
Until now, none of them can be used in daily life. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency has invested 30 million U.S. dollars to produce clothes that are suitable and lightweight, can be used in daily life, and help us keep warm or cool.
We know that in order to maintain a proper temperature, office buildings usually turn on cooling or heating machines 24 hours a day, which consumes a lot of energy. According to statistics, the energy consumed by the air conditioning system accounts for 13% of the total energy in the United States. If everyone wears clothes that can control the temperature, of course, there is no need to turn on the air conditioning and heating system, which can save a lot of energy for the planet. Researchers believe that this can save at least 1% to 2% of energy. Although this percentage is small, the absolute amount is very impressive.
