Personal Wearable Thermal and Moisture Management Clothing: A Review on Its Recent Trends and Performance Evaluation Methods

Abstract

Personal wearable systems designed to manage temperature and moisture are gaining popularity due to their potential to enhance human thermal comfort, safety, and energy efficiency, particularly in light of climate change and energy shortages. This article presents the mechanisms of thermal and moisture management, recent advances in wearable systems for human thermal and moisture management, and methods for their performance evaluation. It evaluates the pros and cons of various systems. The study finds that most wearable systems for thermal and moisture management are being examined as individual topics. However, human heat and moisture management have noteworthy interactions and impacts on human thermal comfort. There are certain limitations in the methods used for evaluating personal heat and moisture management in wearable systems. This review suggests future research directions for wearable systems to advance this field and overcome these limitations.

Scalable, Waterproof, Breathable, and Flexible Polyolefin-Elastomer/Polyethylene Glycol@Zinc Oxide Microfibrous Fabrics for Daytime Radiative Cooling Clothing

“…Cooling clothing that effectively reduces body temperature and alleviates human thermal stress has become increasingly urgent. But traditional cooling clothing, mostly consisting of a huge power supply, like air-cooled and liquid-cooled suits, is bulky, heavy, and short-lived, hindering movement and vision, increasing workload, and causing accidents. − At present, thin, soft fabrics without external energy accessories take the performance of highly reflecting sunlight ranging from 0.3 to 2.5 μm and large emissivity in the atmospheric transparency window ranging from 8 to 13 μm, providing an effective strategy for outdoor cooling clothing. Unfortunately, these primarily thin fabrics easily break and become dirty under external forces due to their weak stretchiness and poor waterproofing, which reduces their effectiveness during outdoor applications .…”