A Patterned Knitted Fabric with Reversible Gating Stability for Dynamic Moisture Management of Human Body

Abstract

Developing dynamic moisture management of textiles is of great significance for smart clothing. However, the current pore-actuated fabric suffers from macro-dimensional deformation in response. Moreover, the fabric is limited in its ability to control the direction and speed of sweat transfer. Herein, a patterned cotton fabric (PCF) is proposed by constructing thermal-triggered transmission channels on the knitted hydrophobic cotton. The resultant fabric can switch the mode of channels spontaneously depending on ambient temperature. When PCF is exposed to the cold environment, the channels are “closed”, which prevents the intrusion of rainwater, reducing moisture permeability (12.1% lower than cotton) and maintaining human body temperature (0.8 °C higher than cotton). When the weather gets hot, channels are “open”, allowing for efficient transportation of water vapor (18.0% higher than cotton) and directional sweat transportation. This design allows adaptive water vapor gating to synergistically occur with directional liquid transport, maximizing personal warming (when cold and raining) and cooling (when hot and sweating).