Impact of SiO₂ Particles in Polyethylene Textile Membrane for Indoor Personal Heating

Keeping the human body in a thermal comfort state inside a room has become a challenge in recent years. While the most common strategy is to heat buildings, it requires a lot of energy. Reducing this energy consumption will have positive impacts, both economically and environmentally. We propose here to act directly on the personal thermal heating of the human body, by modulating the absorption and transmission properties of a synthetic polymer membrane in the mid-infrared (MIR). We show numerically that 5% SiO₂ submicron particles inserted in polyethylene (PE) and nanoporous polyethylene (nanoPE) membranes increase the radiative heating of the membrane, reducing the required ambient temperature of a room by more than 1.1 °C. The proposed membrane can be flexible enough to be easily integrated into conventional textiles.