Scalable Melt-Spun Polyethylene/Boron Nitride Fabric Integrating Radiative and Nonradiative Cooling Effects for Personal Thermal Management

With the escalating global energy crisis and environmental challenges, radiative cooling textiles have emerged as a promising energy-free thermal management solution. However, existing cooling fabrics primarily focus on enhancing optical properties like solar reflectance and infrared emissivity, often neglecting the critical role of nonradiative heat dissipation (conduction and convection) while also facing challenges in scalability, durability, and comfort. To address these limitations, this study presents a scalably manufactured polyethylene/boron nitride (HDPE/BN) composite fabric fabricated via industrial melt spinning and weaving. By uniformly incorporating BN sheets into HDPE fibers, the composite fabric achieves enhanced solar reflectivity (86%) and mid-infrared emissivity (89.3%) due to the high refractive index, efficient Mie scattering, and intrinsic infrared absorption features of BN. More importantly, it exhibits enhanced in-plane thermal conductivity (7.73 ± 0.18 W·m-1·K-1) while maintaining breathability, complementing the nonradiative cooling effects. Experimental results demonstrate that the fabric provides temperature reductions of 3.7 °C (daytime) and 2.7 °C (nighttime) in simulated building cooling tests, and 3.9 °C (daytime) and 1.6 °C (nighttime) in simulated human skin tests. This work highlights the importance of integrating optical and thermal management properties, providing a scalable manufacturing route of high-performance personal cooling textiles for practical applications.