Volume 139, Issue 42 e53018
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Large-scalable polar bear hair-like cellular hollow fibers with excellent thermal insulation and ductility

Liang Wang

Corresponding Author

Liang Wang

School of Textiles Science and Engineering, Tiangong University, Tianjin, People's Republic of China

Correspondence

Liang Wang, School of Textiles Science and Engineering, Tiangong University, Binshui West Road 399, Xiqing Distinct, 300387 Tianjin, People's Republic of China.

Email: [email protected]

Contribution: Data curation (lead), ​Investigation (lead), Writing - review & editing (lead)

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Weili Chi

Weili Chi

School of Textiles Science and Engineering, Tiangong University, Tianjin, People's Republic of China

Contribution: ​Investigation (lead)

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Chuanyong Liu

Chuanyong Liu

School of Textiles Science and Engineering, Tiangong University, Tianjin, People's Republic of China

Contribution: Methodology (supporting)

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Jie Fan

Jie Fan

School of Textiles Science and Engineering, Tiangong University, Tianjin, People's Republic of China

Contribution: Writing - review & editing (supporting)

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Jinyou Lin

Jinyou Lin

Shanghai Advanced Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, People's Republic of China

Contribution: Methodology (supporting)

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Yong Liu

Yong Liu

School of Textiles Science and Engineering, Tiangong University, Tianjin, People's Republic of China

Contribution: Supervision (supporting)

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First published: 13 August 2022
Citations: 1

Funding information: Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai Municipality, Grant/Award Number: 22ZR1470500; Tianjin Research Innovation Project for Postgraduate Students, Grant/Award Number: 2020YJSB067; Tianjin Technical and Engineering Center of Nonwovens, Grant/Award Number: KF202101

Abstract

Passive warm-keeping textiles could reduce carbon emissions by turning down indoor heating in winter. Polar bear hair exhibits a unique structure composed of a hollow core and an aligned porous shell, which extremely helps to resist heat transport. Great interest has arisen in the development of thermo-insulating textiles with this biomimetic structure. In this work, cellular hollow fibers were made by a large-scalable wet spinning-foaming process. This efficient method achieved rapid formation of polar bear hair-like fiber as well as facile turning properties of the fibers. The structure and properties of biomimetic fibers depended on the content of foaming agent. As-prepared porous thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU)/polyacrylonitrile (PAN) composited fiber showed excellent ductility. The maximum tensile strength and breaking elongation was 4.31 MPa and 121%, respectively. The corresponding woven textile exhibited excellent thermal insulation properties even under deformation by compression or tension. The temperature difference across the thickness of textile was 17.9 and 34.9°C under a background temperature of 0 and 80°C, respectively. It may pave the way to fabricate new structure–function integrated fiber materials for warm-keeping textiles.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors declare no competing financial interest.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The data that support the findings of this study are available in the supplementary material of this article.

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