A durable wearable fabric with personal thermal management, infrared steal and electromagnetic shielding

In today’s era of climate variability, severe electromagnetic pollution, and advanced infrared detection technology, multifunctional fabrics integrating personal thermal management (PTM), infrared stealth, and electromagnetic shielding capabilities have become crucial for human health and safety. In this work, we combine the inherently low infrared emissivity of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) with the high electrical conductivity and strong solar light absorption properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to achieve a multifunctional wearable fabric. This fabric has a low mid-infrared (MIR) emissivity of 0.33 in the 8–13 μm band, thereby demonstrating remarkable infrared stealth properties and a passive radiative heating (PRH) performance of 3.1 °C, achieving an ideal covert thermal management effect. Its high electrical conductivity (4204 S·m⁻¹) and solar light absorptivity (95.45%) have endowed it with satisfactory photo/electric-heating performance and an electromagnetic interference shielding efficiency (EMI SE) of 55 dB. Furthermore, this fabric also exhibits excellent self-cleaning properties, along with wearable characteristics that ordinary functional fabrics should possess, such as flexibility, washing resistance, and abrasion resistance. This work not only obtains a functional fabric with broad application prospects in various scenarios such as daily life and military steal, but also fully demonstrated that the conductive polymer PEDOT:PSS is expected to become a highly promising functional material in the fields of thermal regulation and camouflage.