Writing in Flexible and Robust Biomaterial Microstructured Colored Textiles for Personal Thermoregulation, a paper published by ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, researchers described a “strong, comfortable fabric that heats and cools skin, with no energy input”.
According to ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, “the researchers freeze-spun silk and chitosan, a material from the hard outer skeleton of shellfish, into coloured fibres with porous microstructures. They filled the pores with polyethylene glycol (PEG), a phase-changing polymer that absorbs and releases thermal energy. Then, they coated the threads with polydimethylsiloxane to keep the liquid PEG from leaking out. The resulting fibers were strong, flexible and water-repellent”.

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