Meta-Cooling Textile

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Program:
DELTA
Award:
$3,082,002
Location:
College Park, Maryland
Status:
ALUMNI
Project Term:
05/01/2015 - 09/30/2018

Technology Description:

Led by Dr. YuHuang Wang, the “Meta Cooling Textile (MCT)” project team at the University of Maryland (UMD) is developing a thermally responsive clothing fabric that extends the skin’s thermoregulation ability to maintain comfort in hotter or cooler office settings. Commercial wearable localized thermal management systems are bulky, heavy, and costly. MCT marks a potentially disruptive departure from current technologies by providing clothing with active control over the primary channels for energy exchange between the body and the environment. In hotter surroundings, the fabric’s pores open up to increase ventilation while changes in the microstructure of the fabric increase the amount of energy transmitted through the fabric from the wearer. In cooler conditions, these effects are reversed to increase the garment’s ability to insulate the wearer. The added bidirectional regulation capacity will enable the wearer to expand their thermal comfort range and thus relax the temperature settings in building.

Potential Impact:

If successful, DELTA technology could increase energy efficiency, reduce emissions produced by powering traditional HVAC systems, and enable more sustainable heating and cooling architectures for energy-efficient building design.

Security:

The innovations developed under the DELTA program have the potential to increase energy efficiency, improve overall building performance, and reduce HVAC energy consumption by at least 15%.

Environment:

The heating and cooling of buildings generates about 13% of the U.S. domestic greenhouse gas emissions. Through improved utilization of energy produced by fossil fuels with full adoption DELTA can reduce these emission by 2%.

Economy:

DELTA program innovations can help U.S. businesses eventually reduce reliance on tightly controlled building environments, thus enabling radical and sustainable architecture in next generation energy efficient building designs.

Contact

ARPA-E Program Director:
Dr. Jennifer Gerbi
Project Contact:
Dr. YuHuang Wang
Press and General Inquiries Email:
ARPA-E-Comms@hq.doe.gov
Project Contact Email:
yhw@umd.edu

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Release Date:
04/29/2014