An Electrospun Purple Fabric for Personal Thermal Management

Passive radiative cooling (PRC) enables effective personal thermal regulation by reflecting solar irradiation and passively dissipating body heat to outer space. However, balancing aesthetic appeal with efficient cooling remains challenging, particularly for purple fabrics. This is because achieving purple necessitates strong absorption of green light, the peak region of solar irradiance, which fundamentally conflicts with the principles of PRC. Herein, we resolve this trade-off by engineering a purple cooling fabric through a one-step electrospinning strategy, employing metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as spectrally selective colorants within a thermoplastic polyurethane. The MOF provides dense mid-infrared vibrational absorption from its imidazole and Co-N framework, achieving a mid-infrared emissivity of 96.4%, while synergistic scattering with ZnO nanoparticles delivers an average solar reflectance of 87.6% (90.1% in visible light and 90.7% in the near-infrared range). Outdoor tests under direct sunlight show that the fabric is 4.2°C and 6.2°C cooler than commercial white and purple cottons, respectively. This work demonstrates a novel use of MOFs for colored PRC fabrics, advancing the development of next-generation wearable fabrics with enhanced thermal comfort and aesthetic appeal.