In a world of rising temperatures and growing energy needs, a new material made by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign could be just the answer. The printable textile cools while also generating electricity by harvesting energy from human motion.
The advance paves the way toward smart fabrics that can keep people cool while also reducing the need for external power sources.
Others have previously created materials that provide cooling and energy-harvesting capabilities. Those attempts rely on assembling multiple layers with different functions. What’s novel about the new work is that the researchers combined cooling and power-generating into a single printable material.
The demand for cooling is expected to grow tenfold by 2050 as heatwaves due to climate change get more intense, and more people can afford air-conditioning and refrigeration. But conventional air-conditioning is stationary, energy-intensive, and uses gases that are harmful for the planet. There is an urgent need for innovative cooling technologies that do not consume much energy.
Researchers have stepped up to the plate with many personal cooling technologies. Cooling a person is more efficient than cooling entire living and working spaces. “Efficient personal thermal management remains a major challenge for next-generation wearable technologies,” mechanical science and engineering professor Lili Cai and colleagues write in a paper in the journal Advanced Science.
Passive radiative cooling is an especially promising method. The method relies on materials that absorb heat and emit it at a wavelength that passes through the Earth’s atmosphere out into space. They also reflect nearly all the sunlight falling on them.
The UIUC team came up with a simple way to combine radiative cooling materials with devices that convert human motion into electricity. These devices, called triboelectric energy nanogenerators, produce power from the charges that build up when dissimilar materials contact each other and then separate.
The researchers made a composite textile using zirconium oxide. “We use direct ink writing so the material can be printed into flexible, breathable textile structures for wearable applications like athletic clothing, for example,” Cai said in a press release.
The material has just the right mix of properties for radiative cooling and triboelectric energy harvesting. It has a high refractive index, which means it’s excellent at scattering sunlight. And it has dielectric properties which help it accumulate charge.
The printed textile reflected 96% of incoming sunlight. In outdoor tests under direct sunlight, it maintained temperatures approximately 3–6°Celsius below the surrounding air.
Source: Yoon Young Choi et al. Intrinsic Coupling of Radiative Cooling and Triboelectric Responses in Dual-Function ZrO2 Nanocomposites for Adaptive Thermoregulation. Advanced Science, 2026.
Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine
