Porous polyurethane/polyacrylonitrile composite fibers embedded with titanium dioxide for thermal management applications

The growing demand for energy efficiency and the increasing diversity of individual needs make the development of functional textiles with cooling effects crucial for enhancing comfort in human activities. Herein, we report the preparation of composite fibers with a multi-layered porous structure and nano-sized titanium dioxide particles by wet spinning. The as-prepared porous composite fibers exhibited the average diameter of 1.9 − 2.1 × 103 μm, showing good mechanical properties and effective thermal management performance. The corresponding textile also demonstrated the solar reflectance of 108.28, and thermal conductivity of 0.23 ± 0.02 W/(m·K), and good moisture permeability. Radiative cooling tests show that the textile achieves a maximum temperature reduction of 7.7 °C relative to the environment. The combination of high reflectivity, low thermal conductivity, and good mechanical properties highlights their potential applications in thermal management textiles.