Printable clothes cool the wearer and generate electricity

Researchers in the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois have created a printable textile that can cool, detect movement, and generate electricity without external systems or multiple layers.

The textile material is made from zirconium oxide (ZrO₂) nanocomposite, combining passive cooling and biomechanical energy harvesting;

Zirconia, the main component, is highly refractive making it very good at scattering sunlight and its dielectric properties help it accumulate triboelectric charge when it makes and breaks contact with another material.

In short, the material uses radiative cooling to reflect 96 percent of sunlight and radiate away the wearer’s heat, as well as sensing motion by detecting the electricity generated as the wearer moves against the textile.

Researchers have measured the textile at around 3-6 °C below ambient air temperature. For context, humans can detect 1 °C (1.8 °F) differences in air temperature under normal conditions; on top of all that, the material is 3D printable.

The research was driven by the desire by the researchers to see clothes – which we spend 99 percent of our lives in – advance technologically as fast as other essential human needs; it led the scientists to invent clothes with health monitoring, climate adaptation, interactive control, and self-healing among other boons.