Unidirectional water-transport cellulosic fabrics via confined ZnO nanoparticles synthesis for efficient moisture and thermal management
摘要
In hot sunny environments or during strenuous exercise, individuals frequently encounter challenges related to thermoregulation when wearing cotton cloth. Textiles with effective moisture management have attracted attention for their contribution to comfort and energy conservation. Herein, a cotton fabric with asymmetric surface wettability was prepared rapidly by a dip-steam-spraying method, which provided a possible solution to cope with high-temperature outdoor behavior through the combined effect of unidirectional water transport evaporation and sunlight reflection. Fragmentary flower-like zinc oxide nanoparticles were in-situ synthesized and confined around cellulose macromolecules, creating a micro/nano rough structure that significantly enhanced the heat dissipation performance of the fabrics. The utilization of stearic acid on the opposite side of the fabric serves to reduce surface energy, thereby conferring the fabric with a notable unidirectional water transport capability. The resulted cotton fabric exhibited remarkable evaporative breathability (74.12%, 3.02 times the original cotton fabric), high-temperature moisture permeability (1239.37 g m−2 h−1, 43.45% improvement over the original cotton fabric) and room-temperature moisture permeability (296.67 g m−2 h−1, 15.67% increase over the original cotton fabric), as well as enhanced personal thermal management. Simultaneously, the nanostructured zinc oxide coating achieves an outstanding solar reflectance (up to 92.68% across 250–2500 nm wavelength), which is 0.6 °C lower than that of the original cotton fabric under 0.5 solar irradiation. This in-situ confined synthesis strategy for fabricating zinc oxide nanoparticles-modified cotton fabrics provides a new scheme for developing high performance cooling garments for summer wear.