Bikini Gathering To Greet The Summer Season (Photo : Getty Images)
Clothing can help people keep warm but they are not very good at cooling which is why engineers from Stanford have come up with a new plastic textile that can be a replacement.
The goal of the researchers and engineers behind the new plastic textile is to reduce the overall energy consumption of humans using air conditioners inside their homes or in buildings. Giving them a clothing option that will cool them down could persuade them to not use the air conditioner instead.
Stanford Associate Professor Yi Cui said in a statement from Stanford News that cooling the person itself instead of the building or environment will help save energy. Their new plastic textile material can help a human body discharge heat in two ways with the goal of helping the body feel 4 degrees Fahrenheit cooler compared to just wearing the traditional cotton clothes.
The first method is letting sweat evaporate through the material itself which is not at all that surprising considering that most clothes already do that. However, the magic lies in the second method of cooling.
Cui's material is dubbed nanoPE and it allows the infrared radiation from the body to go out from the material and into the environment, The Washington Post reported. While most clothes allow perspiration to pass through, the infrared radiation often gets trapped under the cotton material which is why they are perfect for wanting to feel warm.
nanoPE is short for nanoporous polyethylene and Cui wants to make the textile more common and cheap for everyday use. It could be the answer to the scorching heat in summer instead of having to turn on the air conditioner 24 hours a day and seven days a week which could wreak havoc on the electricity bill.
Cui and his team are still in the process of developing nanoPE and tweaking some of its characteristics to make it viable for the market. Clothing can make a huge difference in how to cool off in summer without spending much on electricity or through vacations on beaches just to feel the cold water dissipating the heat.
