Emerging passive thermoregulatory textiles through tailoring different heat transfer routes

Personal thermal management systems play significant roles in improving personal thermal comfort and decreasing energy consumption resulting from traditional thermoregulation methods such as air conditioning. Thermoregulatory textiles passively regulating human body heat transfer routes through their engineered properties are an effective and promising way to offer personal thermophysiological comfort without extra energy consumption. In this paper, we reviewed recent progress on passive thermoregulatory textiles and classified them into four categories: radiative thermoregulatory textiles, conductive thermoregulatory textiles, single phase convective thermoregulatory textiles, and phase transition convective cooling textiles. By comparing and summarizing their thermoregulatory paths and performance, we found that radiative thermoregulatory textiles are the most promising because of their wide temperature regulation paths, superior thermoregulatory performance, and bidirectional temperature regulation. Furthermore, we provided critical considerations on the various characterization and calculation methods for thermoregulatory performance used in these research works, and pointed out future perspectives in such a burgeoning field.