Core–Shell Yarn Woven Metafabric: Integrated Autonomous Sweat Transport and Radiative-Perspirative Cooling

Abstract

Although the bionic evaporative cooling mechanism is regarded as a key path to enhance the thermal management efficiency of the human body outdoors, the structural limitations of traditional fabrics and the bottleneck of heat transfer efficiency led to sweat retention, intensifying the skin’s heat load and restricting the realization of the goal of microenvironment comfort regulation. Here, a metafabric with unidirectional sweat transport and three cooling modes is innovatively fabricated by weaving core–shell yarns via mature weaving techniques. The gradient wetting structure formed in the fabric through the plasma treatment can pull liquid water out of the skin and diffuse it to the outer layer of the fabric for rapid evaporation (0.41 g h⁻¹), which is in a leading position in the field of sweat evaporation of cotton materials. Meanwhile, the addition of heat-conducting substances in shell nanofibers has improved the sweat cooling utilization rate of cotton fabrics, providing an additional skin temperature drop of 3.5 ℃ through sweat evaporation. In the outdoor experiment simulating human sweating, a temperature reduction of 7 ℃ is observed for skin-covered metafabric compared with skin-covered cotton fabric. Owing to its exceptional performance, the metafabric can provide promising design guidelines for developing a thermal-moisture comfort textile.

Keywords

Core–shell yarn / Unidirectional sweat transport / Evaporation cooling / Thermal-moisture management / Electrospinning

References

[1] Belmonte C, Viana F. Molecular and cellular limits to somatosensory specificity. Mol Pain, 2008, 4: 1744.

[2] Fang Y, Chen G, Bick M, Chen J. Smart textiles for personalized thermoregulation. Chem Soc Rev, 2021, 50: 9357.

[3] Zhang X, Wang F, Guo H, Sun F, Li X, Zhang C, Yu C, Qin X. Advanced cooling textiles: mechanisms, applications, and perspectives. Adv Sci, 2024, 11. 2305228

[4] Tian Y, Ding R, Yoon SS, Zhang S, Yu J, Ding B. Recent advances in next-generation textiles. Adv Mater, 2025, 37. 2417022

[5] Peng Y, Li W, Liu B, Jin W, Schaadt J, Tang J, Zhou G, Wang G, Zhou J, Zhang C, Zhu Y, Huang W, Wu T, Goodson KE, Dames C, Prasher R, Fan S, Cui Y. Integrated cooling (i-Cool) textile of heat conduction and sweat transportation for personal perspiration management. Nat Commun, 2021, 12: 6122.

[6] Miao D, Cheng N, Wang X, Yu J, Ding B. Integration of Janus wettability and heat conduction in hierarchically designed textiles for all-day personal radiative cooling. Nano Lett, 2022, 22: 680.

[7] Goldstein LS, Dewhirst MW, Repacholi M, Kheifets L. Summary, conclusions and recommendations: adverse temperature levels in the human body. Int J Hyperthermia, 2003, 19: 373.

[8] Lan C, Liang M, Meng J, Mao Q, Ma W, Li M, Pu X. Humidity-responsive actuator-based smart personal thermal management fabrics achieved by solar thermal heating and sweat-evaporation cooling. ACS Nano, 2025, 19: 8294.

[9] Gong W, Wang X, Yang W, Zhou J, Han X, Dickey MD, Su Y, Hou C, Li Y, Zhang Q, Wang H. Wicking–polarization-induced water cluster size effect on triboelectric evaporation textiles. Adv Mater, 2021, 33. 2007352

[10] Peng Y, Zhou J, Yang Y, Lai JC, Ye Y, Cui Y. An integrated 3D hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity design for artificial sweating skin (i-TRANS) mimicking human body perspiration. Adv Mater, 2022, 34. 2204168

[11] Zhao J, Peng Y, Hu P, Hu X, Su X, Sun F. Knot-patterned treble-weaving smart electronic textiles with advanced thermal and moisture regulation for seamless motion monitoring. Adv Funct Mater, 2025.

[12] Li F, Wang S, Wang Z, Jiang K, Zhao X, Shao L, Pan Y. Fouling-Proof cooling (FP-Cool) fabric hybrid with enhanced sweat-elimination and heat-dissipation for personal thermal regulation. Adv Funct Mater, 2023, 33. 2210769

[13] Meng N, Zhang Y, Lin Y, Zhao C, Li Z, Wang X, Yu J, Ding B. Integrated high barrier and efficient moisture-wicking multilayer textile for medical and health protection. Adv Funct Mater, 2023, 33. 2305411

[14] Yetisen AK, Qu H, Manbachi A, Butt H, Dokmeci MR, Hinestroza JP, Skorobogatiy M, Khadembosssimi A, Yun SH. Nanotechnology in textiles. ACS Nano, 2016, 10: 3042.

[15] Zhang Q, Wang M, Chen T, Chen Z, Liu D, Zhang Z, Zhuo L, Wang Y, Xiao X, Zhu B, Li L, Xu W. Sweat gland-like fabric for personal thermal-wet comfort management. Advanced function material, 2024HobokenWiley2409807

[16] Havenith G, Bröde P, Hartog E, Kuklane K, Holmer I, Rossi RM, Richards M, Farnworth B, Wang X. Evaporative cooling: effective latent heat of evaporation in relation to evaporation distance from the skin. J Appl Physiol, 2013, 114: 778.

[17] Miao D, Wang X, Yu J, Ding B. A biomimetic transpiration textile for highly efficient personal drying and cooling. Adv Funct Mater, 2021, 31. 2008705

[18] Guan M, Annaheim S, Li J, Camenzind M, Psikuta A, Rossi RM. Apparent evaporative cooling efficiency in clothing with continuous perspiration: a sweating manikin study. Int J Therm Sci, 2019, 137: 446.

[19] Craig FN, Moffitt JT. Efficiency of evaporative cooling from wet clothing. J Appl Physiol, 1974, 36: 313.

[20] Huang K, Si Y, Hu J. Fluid unidirectional transport induced by structure and ambient elements across porous materials: from principles to applications. Adv Mater, 2024.

[21] Jiao J, Li Y, Yao L, Chen Y, Guo Y, Wong SH, Ng FSF, Hu J. Effects of body-mapping-designed clothing on heat stress and running performance in a hot environment. Ergonomics, 2017, 60: 1435.

[22] Hartgill TW, Bergersen TK, Pirhonen J. Core body temperature and the thermoneutral zone: a longitudinal study of normal human pregnancy. Acta Physiol, 2011, 201: 467.

[23] Mao N, Qin X, Wang L, Yu J. Electrospun nanofiber/cotton composite yarn with enhanced moisture management ability. Text Res J, 2021, 91: 1467.

[24] Mao N, Qin X, Wang L, Yu J. The migration behavior of electrospun nanofibers within cotton slivers in roller drafting and their effects on composite yarn quality. Text Res J, 2021, 91: 1555.

[25] Fan W, Lei R, Dou H, Wu Z, Lu L, Wang S, Liu X, Chen W, Rezakazemi M, Aminabhavi TM, Li Y, Ge S. Sweat permeable and ultrahigh strength 3D PVDF piezoelectric nanoyarn fabric strain sensor. Nat Commun, 2024, 15: 3509.

[26] Zhang L, Guo Y, Mo R, Liu X, Wang G, Wu R, Liu H. Hierarchical weaving metafabric for unidirectional water transportation and evaporative cooling. Adv Funct Mater, 2023, 33. 2307590

[27] Lao L, Shou D, Wu Y, Fan J. “Skin-like” fabric for personal moisture management. Sci Adv, 2020, 6. eaaz0013

[28] Mao N, Ye J, Quan Z, Zhang H, Wu D, Qin X, Wang R, Yu J. Tree-like structure driven water transfer in 1D fiber assemblies for functional moisture-wicking fabrics. Mater Des, 2020, 186. 108305

[29] Zhang Y, Fu J, Ding Y, Babar AA, Song X, Chen F, Yu X, Zheng Z. Thermal and moisture managing E-textiles enabled by Janus hierarchical gradient honeycombs. Adv Mater, 2024, 36. 2311633

[30] Fan C, Zhang Y, Long Z, Mensah A, Wang Q, Lv P, Wei Q. Dynamically tunable subambient daytime radiative cooling metafabric with Janus wettability. Adv Funct Mater, 2023, 33. 2300794

[31] Ding C, Lin Y, Cheng N, Wang X, Yin X, Yu J, Ding B. Dual-cooling textile enables vertical heat dissipation and sweat evaporation for thermal and moisture regulation. Adv Funct Mater, 2024, 34. 2400987

[32] Yang P, Ju Y, He J, Xia Z, Chen L, Tang S. Advanced janus membrane with directional sweat transport and integrated passive cooling for personal thermal and moisture management. Adv Fiber Mater, 2024, 6: 1765.

[33] Miao D, Cheng N, Wang X, Yu J, Ding B. Sandwich-structured textiles with hierarchically nanofibrous network and Janus wettability for outdoor personal thermal and moisture management. Chem Eng J, 2022, 450. 138012

[34] Chen F, Tian Q, Wang T, Ma L, Liu R, Wang S. Fabrication of a multifunctional antibacterial cotton-based fabric for personal cooling. Appl Surf Sci, 2023, 609. 155291

[35] Zheng M, Gu J, Zhang H, He X, He M, Wang L, Qin X. Simple post-treatment of cotton fabric for efficient personal moisture management. Text Res J, 2023, 93: 3299.

[36] Zheng M, He X, Liu W, Hao Y, Wang L, Qin X. Dual-mode triboelectric field polarization induced sweat evaporation for personal moisture management cotton textiles. Nano Res, 2024, 18: 1998.

[37] Xue T, Chen X, Wang C, Yin Y. Dual-mode cellulose acetate@Al₂O₃/MWCNTs janus fabric with radiative cooling and solar heating for personal thermal management. Chem Eng J, 2024, 500. 156713

[38] Yan Z, Zhu G, Fan D, Li Q. Bioinspired metafabric with dual-gradient Janus design for personal radiative and evaporative cooling. Adv Funct Mater, 2025, 35. 2412261

Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China(52373032)

Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities(2232023A-05)

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

Donghua University, Shanghai, China

Just Accepted

This article has successfully passed peer review and final editorial review, and will soon enter typesetting, proofreading and other publishing processes. The currently displayed version is the accepted final manuscript. The officially published version will be updated with format, DOI and citation information upon launch. We recommend that you pay attention to subsequent journal notifications and preferentially cite the officially published version. Thank you for your support and cooperation.