A universal green coating strategy on textiles for simultaneous color and thermal management

Colored textiles with thermal management capabilities have attracted increasing attention for satisfying aesthetics, comfort, and energy saving demands. In this work, we report a universal approach based on physical vapor deposition of TiO 2 /SiO 2 /Si (cool) and Ag/Si (warm) nanophotonic structures, which enables various types of textiles with similar color but different thermal management capabilities. By controlling the thickness of the Si layer in the cool and warm nanophotonic structures, cool and or warm nylon textiles with different colors, such as yellow, orange, pink, purplish red, violet grey, indigo and grey, were obtained. Compared with IR-opaque conventional blank nylon, the temperature of artificial skin increased by 10.2 °C/1.7 °C and 2.4 °C/0 °C under mid-day sunlight exposure/indoor conditions, respectively, for similar rose-brown warm and cool nanophotonic-structured nylon textiles; compared with IR-transparent blank nanoporous polyethylene (nanoPE) textiles, the temperature of artificial skin increased by 19.8 °C/3.6 °C and 4.1°C/0 °C under mid-day sunlight exposure/indoor conditions, respectively, for similar pink warm and cool nanophotonic-structured nanoPE textiles. Moreover, the developed nanophotonic structures and materials used here endowed the textile with excellent anti-UV and antibacterial properties. This work provides a green strategy for dye-free coloring, thermal management, and textile multifunctionalization. Graphical abstract