7 ms·
Impossibly thin fabric could cool you down by 16-plus degrees
- OutOfHere 2y agoThere have been a lot of such materials over the years, but for some strange reason, none of them ever gets commercialized. We could have been using them all over the place, on all surfaces that expose to sunlight, but they're nowhere to be found.
- sottol 2y agoProbably because they're impossibly hard or expensive to manufacture at scale and nobody was willing to front the money to kickstart the research to commercialize.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- SoftTalker 2y ago"Silver nanowires" is probably the limiting factor on this one. Silver isn't that rare but it's certainly not cheap compared to normal textile fibers.
- VygmraMGVl 2y agoAlso probably a skin and lung irritant. Lots of people have contact allergies to macroscale silver and nanowires tend to get embedded in cells in soft tissue.
- OutOfHere 2y agoUpon further research, it turns out that nano silver gradually accumulates in the brain and the testes. It is otherwise eliminated from the body, but not so easily from these organs. As such, it is not safe for long-term exposure. References: Accumulation of Silver Nanoparticles in Brain and Testes during Long-Term Ingestion to Mammals (2017) Disturbance in Mammalian Cognition Caused by Accumulation of Silver in Brain (2021) (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
- OutOfHere 2y agoRegarding nanowires, for what it's worth, nano silver is used as a highly effective antimicrobial skin cream, and none of its users complain of an allergy. In this way it also accelerates wound healing. It is even more benign than some skin antibiotics that trigger an allergy. Given this evidence, I don't think nanoscale use of silver in clothing is going to be a a concern for the vast majority of people. Disclaimer: Silver is a slight poison and should not be used for a prolonged duration.
- serf 2y ago>and none of its users complain of an allergy. I have a hard time imagining that's true for any material, ever.
- throwaway290 2y agoI think the concern is about when the clothing starts falling apart and nanowires end up in the air of your room and eventually your lungs/stomach, like nanoplastics cross into tissue and individual cells, accumulate, turn up in sperm/placenta etc.
- OutOfHere 2y agoIt turns out that some small amount of nano silver is perfectly manageable by the body, although I make no claim for the lungs. People even apply or drink it as an antimicrobial medicine without issue. It's when they take too much silver over time that it becomes an issue.
- throwaway290 2y agoThe key is "nano wires". What we drink and eat gets pooped out and doesn't permeate organ tissue and cells. Nano stuff does.
- OutOfHere 2y agoUpon further research, it turns out that nano silver gradually accumulates in the brain and the testes. It is otherwise eliminated from the body, but not so easily from these organs. As such, it is not safe for long-term exposure. References: Accumulation of Silver Nanoparticles in Brain and Testes during Long-Term Ingestion to Mammals (2017) Disturbance in Mammalian Cognition Caused by Accumulation of Silver in Brain (2021) (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
- freedomben 2y agoFrom the things I've seen, it almost always comes down to IP issues clashing with economic realities. The person holding the rights either can't get it done and/or won't license it to people who can (at economically viable rates), so it languishes. It's especially frustrating since the whole IP system was supposed to encourage innovation.
- throwaway290 2y agoCan you tell more about the things you've seen? If no one offers enough money, perhaps their research found it's just a bunch of hot air and not actually a viable design.
- OutOfHere 2y agoThat's not at all what the parent comment is saying. Also, such materials are real.
- throwaway290 2y ago> That's not at all what the parent comment is saying. That's what I'm saying. It's how discussion works, he said one thing, I said something different. > Also, such materials are real. Real but not feasible for any reason. The other commenter didn't give any info that would deny that. You didn't, too. I don't blame you, it would take non trivial amount of time and money to just understand if an idea doesn't work out in real world. Maybe manufacturing too expensive, maybe there's some blocking regulation, maybe health hazards for workers, environmental hazards... But yeah of course a random guy on HN knows for sure it's the IP law that's always ruining things. Who would care about potential drawbacks of some tech, we got PFAS into blood of probably everyone now so why stop there?
- freedomben 2y ago> If no one offers enough money, perhaps their research found it's just a bunch of hot air and not actually a viable design. I won't go into specifics because none of them are my story to tell, and I don't have enough inside information to say with certainty anyway, but their research clearly showed it was not just a bunch of hot air, but the economic viability was mixed and often not there. In one case, it was only a marginal improvement over something that was already in high production, and the economies of scale made it so that this slightly better product would initially cost 100x more to produce, and even at moderate scale still 10x. My friend was offered some small amount (IIRC it was like $5,000) by some research firm to buy out the patent. He refused because he felt it was worth a lot more, but AFAIK it never ended up going anywhere. He (like the other cases) was inundated with (often conflicting) advice from a ton of angles, by many people who wanted to profit from the whole thing. It was pretty disheartening to watch. There was another one where a friend of a friend who was a professor discovered a way to improve efficiency in transmissions. They ended up raising substantial money but wanted too much to license out the IP to auto-makers, and the auto-makers walked. They ended up with essentially nothing and shortly afterward an even better CV transmission was discovered/invented, rendering his design obsolete anyway.
- VirusNewbie 2y agoIt said they compared it to “broadband emitter fabric” which sounds like it is commercialized? I don’t know what the common name for that is though.
- btilly 2y agoThe two main problems are how to manufacture them at scale, and how durable they are. A thin outer layer on your clothing tends to get fairly rough treatment. Think about sitting down, then scooting your butt back. How much force was that? Amd if this is anywhere other than the outer layer, it won't work as well.
- mensetmanusman 2y agohttps://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/energy-conservation-us/applications/passive-radiative-cooling/ https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/energy-conservation-us/applicati... 3M sells them for grocery store roofs in the US.
- polotics 2y agoAre we now just in the timeline where David Bowie's https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Fell_to_Earth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Fell_to_Earth happens?
- vermilingua 2y agoI feel like the title should qualify that this is 16degF
- robxorb 2y ago8.89°C
- justanotheratom 2y agowhat else could it be ;)
- cozzyd 2y agoLatitude
- justanotheratom 2y agohumor is lacking on HN.
- euroderf 2y agoNot 16 degrees Fahrenheit, but rather, 16 Fahrenheit degrees.
- thefifthsetpin 2y agoReally? Where are you from that they say it that way?
- Tagbert 2y agoyet, 16 degrees Fahrenheit is how we would normally say it.
- readthenotes1 2y agoIs it cupfuls or cupsful?
- robxorb 2y ago
- BugsJustFindMe 2y ago"impossibly thin" sounds a lot like "very fragile and therefore completely impractical for things that you want fabrics for". Or maybe we now want to fill the world and coat our bodies in nanoscale plastic and silver dust?
- OutOfHere 2y ago> very fragile Thin can always be made thicker by adding layers, but thick cannot similarly be made thinner. Thin is a feature.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- zamadatix 2y ago> There is no mention of plastic here. The use of plastics here is mentioned as early as the second paragraph. It's the outer layer at least so at least it's better than normal microplastics on skin from plastic fiber abrasion. Still a bit of a problem once it hits the wash though.
- denton-scratch 2y agoI'm suspicious that perhaps silver nanowires might be a health risk? I believe finely-divided silver can be toxic, at least in some circumstances. Also, it's a composite with a plastic material, and would probably resist all attempts to recycle it, resulting eventually in microplastics (contaminated with metallic silver).
- cyberax 2y agoSilver is uniquely non-toxic among heavy metals. You can consume a lot of it without consequences. Some people do, look up "colloidal silver". However, it also has a long elimination half-life, and it can stain the skin.
- Palomides 2y agosilver has been used for a while in antimicrobial fabrics, to my knowledge it's pretty safe
- __alexs 2y agoIf the difference between two numbers in Celsius is Kelvin, what unit is the difference between two numbers in Fahrenheit?
- roter 2y agoRankine.
- KeplerBoy 2y agoFahrenheit. When subtracting two quantities the result has the same unit, we just use Kelvin because it's the appropriate SI unit.
- cubefox 2y agoWe can't use Kelvin for Fahrenheit differences though. That only works for Celsius. Kelvin is Celsius with absolute zero. Fahrenheit with absolute zero is Rankine.
- TeaBrain 2y agoThe other guy who responded to the parent is right. The absolute scale for measuring the difference between two Fahrenheit degrees is Rankine.
- akira2501 2y agoJust for the sake of sheer pedantry. The scale for measuring the _ratio_ is Rankine. You can measure differences with an _ordinal_ scale, which is what Celsius and Fahrenheit are.
- cubefox 2y agoFor even more pedantry, Celsius and Fahrenheit aren't just ordinal scales. They are called interval scales, which lie between ordinal and ratio scales: > Another typical example is the Celsius scale, which is divided into 100 equal degree sections between the freezing and boiling points of water. Unlike the intervals in nominal and ordinal scales, it is possible to make calculations with individual data points in interval scales. The difference in temperature between 10°C and 20°C is the same distance as between 40°C and 50°C. In contrast to ratio scales, interval scales lack a natural zero point. In the case of the Celsius temperature scale, '0°C' is an arbitrarily chosen zero point (whereas the Kelvin temperature scale begins at the absolute zero point with 0K (-273.15°C/-459.67°F). Multiplications with an interval scale are therefore not useful. While it is true for the Kelvin ratio scale that 100K defines double the heat energy in a mass as 50K, this is not true for 50°C/100°C. https://www.statista.com/statistics-glossary/definition/320/interval_scale/ https://www.statista.com/statistics-glossary/definition/320/...
- proee 2y agoThis is how modern roofing stackups work. They have a radiant heat barrier (layer) usually made from a thin foil shield attached to the roofing plywood. The only catch is you need a vented barrier below the foil to remove the heat. This is usually in the form of battons that are vented out to a ridge vent. For this fabric to work, the third layer is acting like a thermal insulator - making sure the silver layer does not transfer the heat to your body.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- p51-remorse 2y ago[flagged]
- oopsallmagic 2y ago[flagged]
- p51-remorse 2y agoIf something is good for public health or safety, the best way to deploy it is to start selling it now. Exponential growth of production rates means that every day, month, or year you delay is many thousands or millions of units not produced. If you care about public safety and health, your best route is to find a way to align it with something profitable. That’s just the truth.
- oopsallmagic 2y ago[flagged]
- oopsallmagic 2y ago[dead]
- _Microft 2y agoThe unit is Fahrenheit here, that is 16°F ≈ 8.9°C. It‘s also mentioned towards the end of the article but just to give readers an idea what to expect. The difference is also compared to silk while other, more modern fabrics perform much better and close the gap to the new material to just over 2.3°C/4°F. These are certainly impressive numbers!
- seba_dos1 2y ago16° doesn't seem that impressive, waiting for the full 360°.
- dsq 2y agoI'm holding on for 365
- thorgrimr 2y agoI wonder how it fares actually cooling the body. Does the fabric also block heat coming from the body wearing it? Has anyone information on the fabric that was able to cool the body that Ars covered? https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/07/new-fabric-passively-cools-whatever-its-covering-including-you/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/07/new-fabric-passively...