Thermal management of cotton fabrics

Thermal management of fabrics is vital for a variety of applications because this property is directly associated with the wear comfort feature. Different approaches have been adopted to manage the heat transfer of fabrics. However, most of them focus on adjusting fabric thickness, porosity and weave structure. Surface finishing of fabrics with a thermally conductive/insulating material has received little attention. In this work, a wet chemistry coating technique was employed to functionalise cotton fabric, and the possibility of using a thin thermally conductive/insulating coating to control the heat transfer feature of fabrics was examined. Different thermal conductive/insulting nano fillers were used and co-applied with a resin (Hercosett XC) to form a nanocomposite coating on a cotton fabric.