Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 19, 2025

Author Spotlight: Advancing Energy Solutions Using Nanocomposites as Processed Thermoelectric Materials
Published on: May 17, 2024
Efficient Warming Textile Enhanced by a High-Entropy Spectrally Selective Nanofilm with High Solar Absorption
Cheng-Yu He1,2, Peng Zhao1, Hong Zhang3
1Laboratory of Clean Energy Chemistry and Materials, State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, China.
Abstract:
Solar and radiative warming are smart approaches to maintaining the human body at a metabolically comfortable temperature in both indoor and outdoor scenarios. Nevertheless, existing warming textiles are ineffective in frigid climates because the solar absorption of selective absorbing coating is significantly reduced when coated on rough textile surface. Herein, for the first time, high-entropy nitrides based spectrally selective film (SSF) is introduced on common cotton through a one-step magnetron sputtering method. The well-designed refractive index gradient enables destructive interference effects, offering a roughness-insensitive high solar absorptance (92.8%) and low thermal emittance (39.2%). Impressively, the solar absorptance is 9.1% higher than the reported best-performing selective nanofilm-based textile. As a result, such a textile achieves a record-high photothermal conversion efficiency (82.2% under 0.6 suns, at 0 °C). This textile yields a 3.5 °C drop in the set-point of indoor air-conditioner temperature. Besides, in a winter morning with an air temperature of 7.5 °C, it warms up the human skin by as large as 12 °C under weak sunlight (350 W m-2 ). More importantly, such a superior radiative warming performance is achieved by engineering the widely used cotton without compromising its breathability and durability, showing great potential for practical applications.

