PurposePersonal thermal management in functional textiles is in increasing demand for health care, outdoor activity and energy saving. Thus, developing new strategies is highly desired for radiative cooling and/or heating by manipulation of the transmissivity, reflectivity and absorptivity of the textiles within solar energy and human body heat radiation ranges.Design/methodology/approachInorganic additives including TiO2, Fe2O3, carbon black (CB), graphene and mica were incorporated into polymer films. The inorganic additives' full spectrum properties and thermal responses were comprehensively investigated.FindingsThe CB composite film showed the highest absorptivity over the full solar to human body radiation spectrum. The mica-white (mica-w) (mica coated with TiO2) and mica-red (mica-r) (mica coated with Fe2O3) composites showed the lowest solar energy absorptivity and a strong body heat radiation reflectivity. Furthermore, according to composites' thermal responses to the simulated solar and human body radiations, CB and mica are promising for both cooling and heating when applied in dual-functional thermal management textiles.Research limitations/implicationsResearch has limitation related the amount of additives which can be added to textile. When powder is added to polyester yarn, the amount is limited by 2–3%. When powder is added to the composite which is used for printing, the amount of powder is limited by 5%.Practical implicationsA lot of apparel, especially sport apparel, contains prints. Decoration is one part of print application. Now, a lot of companies work under development of different additives, which provide additional properties to apparel. The closest targets for powder added to prints are cooling and heat retention. Quite often, inorganic additives possess dual properties: the inorganic additives may be heat reflective which his needed for heat retention, but may have high-thermal conductivity, which works well for cooling. Human body has complicated mechanism of heat exchange: convection, radiation and moisture evaporations play main role. The same additive may be cooling if there is a contact with skin but may be heating (IR reflective) if placed in the second or third layer. Thus, effect is needed to be studied first before real application.Originality/valueThis work could provide a comprehensive guideline for the rational design and application of thermal management composite textile materials by revealing the full solar to human body radiation performance of a series of inorganic materials.

Nonwoven paddings with superior stretch and recovery properties in both directions with good thermal insulation properties were developed for application in winter clothes. Paddings were developed using a self‐crimping elastic fiber composed of both polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polytrimethylene terephthalate (PTT) polymers, polyester fiber balls, polypropylene fiber balls, along with bicomponent as binder fibers at different blending ratios through carding, postthermal bonding, and gluing process. Developed paddings were characterized and analyzed for their biaxial stretch and recovery behavior, elongation under tensile load, stiffness, thermal insulation, and washing stability. In addition, energy loss was calculated and reported from hysteresis curve obtained during 40% loading (stretch) and unloading (recovery) cycle. The results were statistically evaluated to determine whether fiber types and blend ratios have significant effect on nonwoven paddings properties. This study indicates that nonwoven padding composed of naturally crimped elastic fibers: binder fibers (50:50) has ability to stretch around 120‐140% in both directions, 95% total recovery with minimal energy loss upon 40% stretch and recovery cycle, and it has sustainable tensile breaking load around 11 N along cross direction and 20 N along machine direction. It has stiffness load 5 N which is flexible enough for required applications, possesses good thermal insulation properties, and holds their structural properties after five washing cycles. From statistical analysis, ANOVA results exhibited that the used fiber types and their weight percentages significantly affect stretch and recovery, other properties of nonwoven paddings for required application.