Introduction: With the development of science and technology and the improvement of living standards, consumer demand has transformed from basic to technologically intelligent. As an important part of the smart wearable field, smart heating has huge market potential. Affected by the trend of the Winter Olympics, more and more clothing brands have begun to pay attention to and transform into smart electric heating clothing. So, how to choose heating technology? Carbon fiber, graphene, and carbon nanotubes are the three popular technologies nowadays. Which one is more suitable for application in clothing products?
Smart heating wearable vents are here
(Picture from: Popular Science China)
2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, the United States National Team Wearing an electric heating jacket developed and designed by Ralph Lauren at the opening ceremony, it attracted attention from all over the world and quickly set off a buying trend;
(Picture from: Rendering of the National Speed Skating Hall)
The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics will be vigorously promoted by the Chinese Olympic Organizing Committee, the National Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology The smart electric heating clothing project actively promotes the development of domestic electric heating technology.
Affected by the trend of the Winter Olympics, the traditional clothing industry has increased its investment in smart electric heating clothing.
(Pictures come from: promotional pictures of major brands)
The electric heating clothing market in the autumn and winter of 2019 is particularly lively:
Sports brands represented by Anta, Li Ning, and 361°; Descente, Rimba, Peacebird, and Yalu, represented by Leisure brands; Internet-based clothing brands represented by Xiaomi 90 Fen and Fengmi have launched different types of smart electric heating cotton/down jackets based on their own product positioning.
With its high-tech heating function, comfortable heating experience, and fashionable design in line with the brand’s personality, these heated clothes received an enthusiastic response as soon as they were put on the market. The brands have achieved impressive results.
Alibaba Group’s Intelligent Manufacturing Division teamed up with top traffic internet celebrities to follow the trend of smart heating wear and innovatively developed smart palace-warming pants: The design that can easily warm the lower abdomen with just a power bank has been very popular among girls: 30,000 units were sold within one night of its launch!
The Winter Olympics has brought significant development opportunities to the smart wearable industry. The successful testing of smart heating products by brands has also enhanced the confidence of clothing companies in their intelligent transformation. The trend of smart heating wear has arrived.
How to choose clothing heating technology?
The implementation of electric heating clothing is mainly to connect heating elements, temperature control devices, safety protection devices, etc. through wires to form a circuit, and use power supply control The electric heating element inside the clothing converts electrical energy into thermal energy to achieve the purpose of active heating. Among them, the heating element is one of the most important structures in electric heating clothing.
At present, there are three main types of heating elements used in the field of clothing heating: carbon fiber heating sheets, graphene heating sheets and carbon nanotube electric heating films.
How to achieve electric heating
·Carbon fiber
It is made of multiple strands of extremely fine carbon fiber wires twisted into a rope shape, applied with voltage, and sealed with soft cloth. Carbon fiber itself is made up of irregularly stacked graphite crystallites, which have the soft processability of textile fibers. However, this structure also reduces the mechanical ability and toughness of carbon fiber. When bending, some fiber filaments will break, causing the resistance to increase, causing local temperatures to be too high or directly unable to work.
·Graphene
Graphene The way to achieve electric heating is to make it into a slurry and coat it on a substrate to form a planar conductive layer. In order to maintain the relative stability of the resistance, the substrate is generally made of a harder material, which results in the overall texture being hard and thick and easy to break when bent.
·Carbon nanotubes
Carbon Nanotubes have a very large aspect ratio, allowing them to self-assemble into network-structured films without the need for support from any substrate, a self-supporting structure.The structure makes the carbon nanotube film very flexible and has very good mechanical strength. It can be bent at will and maintain stable structure and electrical properties. Later, you only need to apply voltage to both ends of the film and encapsulate it with soft cloth to energize and generate heat.
Performance test of three heating materials
Note: Local temperatures that are too high can easily cause burns or even fire.
The water washing test data shows that the graphene heating plate can support about 10 standard water washing times; the carbon fiber heating plate can support 10-20 standard water washing times; and The performance of the carbon nanotube heating sheet (film) remains stable after 40 times of standard water washing.
(Test data is for reference only)</p
