- Leung, Erica M;
- Colorado Escobar, Melvin;
- Stiubianu, George T;
- Jim, Steven R;
- Vyatskikh, Alexandra L;
- Feng, Zhijing;
- Garner, Nicholas;
- Patel, Priyam;
- Naughton, Kyle L;
- Follador, Maurizio;
- Karshalev, Emil;
- Trexler, Matthew D;
- Gorodetsky, Alon A
Effective thermal management is critical for the operation of many modern technologies, such as electronic circuits, smart clothing, and building environment control systems. By leveraging the static infrared-reflecting design of the space blanket and drawing inspiration from the dynamic color-changing ability of squid skin, we have developed a composite material with tunable thermoregulatory properties. Our material demonstrates an on/off switching ratio of ~25 for the transmittance, regulates a heat flux of ~36 W/m2 with an estimated mechanical power input of ~3 W/m2, and features a dynamic environmental setpoint temperature window of ~8 °C. Moreover, the composite can manage one fourth of the metabolic heat flux expected for a sedentary individual and can also modulate localized changes in a wearer's body temperature by nearly 10-fold. Due to such functionality and associated figures of merit, our material may substantially reduce building energy consumption upon widespread deployment and adoption.