I admit I didn’t read the article throughly, but surely if it’s impossiblely thin it can’t exist. I only bring this up because I’m an obnoxious pedant.
Impossibly thin fabric could cool you down by 16-plus degrees
Submitted 4 months ago by kinther@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.fastcompany.com/91142992/this-impossibly-thin-fabric-could-cool-you-down-by-16-degrees
Comments
ZagamTheVile@lemmy.world 4 months ago
lurch@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
i just read the title and it sounds like it will freeze people to death
werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I would require a wet T shirt contest to really see and compare.
A_Very_Big_Fan@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Same. Guess I won’t bother looking into it if it’s impossible 🤷♀️
Aux@lemmy.world 4 months ago
We can make materials as thin as one atom. It’s just very expensive.
iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com 4 months ago
Can’t you make one atom thin sheets of carbon with a pencil and tape?
robotica@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Yeah but he was being pedantic over the word “impossibly”. If we can make 1 atom thin sheets, then it’s not impossible, right?
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 4 months ago
“This is thin.”
“Impossibly thin!”
“No… I’m pretty sure it’s possible considering we are holding it right this very second.”
vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
Actual degrees or American fantasy units?
ryan213@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
Made of plastic… Just what we need!
invertedspear@lemm.ee 4 months ago
If we can recycle single use plastic into this, then great. Somehow I doubt that’s how it would be made.
masquenox@lemmy.world 4 months ago
If we can recycle single use plastic into this, then great.
They won’t - they’ll just use “Recycling!” as a pretext to continue business as usual… which was the whole point of “Recycling!” in the first place.
asdfasdfasdf@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Disagree. Even if we could, from what I understand, large, solid pieces of plastic are better than extremely small, thin, fragile pieces since those are going to turn into microplastics and get everywhere. I’d rather have them in one big chunk.
HelixDab2@lemm.ee 4 months ago
On top of that, as we experience higher temperatures, many people also crank up their air conditioners—which emit more heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
This is not correct. Air conditioning units do not ‘emit more […] greenhouse gases’. Air conditioners use a refrigerant–usually R134a–which does have a high global warming potential (GWP) compared to methane or CO2, but that refrigerant is in a closed loop; it’s not going anywhere unless the system is damaged. Most a/c failures aren’t from refrigerant leaking out of the system, and the system no longer being able to effectively transfer heat, but from the compressor motor failing. When the compressor fails, in most cases you can evacuate the refrigerant, replace the broken part, and then recharge the system. (The fact that they can be repaired doesn’t mean that they usually are repaired. Which is shitty.)
What is true is that a/c units emit heat themselves. An air conditioner moves heat from inside a space to outside of that space; in the process of doing so, the a/c unit itself is creating an additional small amount of heat from the function of the compressor motor, electronics, etc.
Beyond that, most electricity that’s used to run a/c systems–and every other electrical device–is produced from burning fossil fuels. So if there’s more demand for electricity–such as from a heat dome that has everyone running their a/c full-time–then yes, more CO2 is going to get pumped out into the atmosphere. But if your electricity is coming from sources that are largely emissions-free, like solar, wind, or hydro, then air conditioning is a negligible source of heat.
tl;dr - don’t feel bad about using your a/c when heat rises to dangerous levels; agitate at a local, state, and national level for renewable, carbon-neutral ways of generating electricity, and for more efficient use of electricity.
crawancon@lemm.ee 4 months ago
Thank you.
I don’t think we should feel bad for housing AC. it was created by us to feel comfortable. Just because companies and bitcoin miners and ultron-ass skynet-ass LLM/ML-ass trainers are using stupid amounts of resource doesn’t mean the population is the cause. it’s the greedy few.
HelixDab2@lemm.ee 4 months ago
I agree with all of this. At the same time, I think that, in most cases, people should allow their body to adapt to heat, if they are healthy enough to do so. Most people can learn to be comfortable in higher heat than they believe, although some people have medical conditions that will make them more susceptible to heat exhaustion and heat stroke. If you can get by without it, you should. If you’re at risk by not using it, don’t feel guilty.
(FWIW, my office only has a/c because I have a very, very large printer in here, and it tends to have head strikes and scrap prints out if there’s no climate control. But since I’m not printing at the moment, the current temp in here is 82F.
piecat@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Nighthawkinlight just released a video on a material that accomplishes this that you could make at home.
tyler@programming.dev 4 months ago
So different thickness materials can actually cool you off just from a heat transfer perspective, completely ignoring the PCM capabilities (I didn’t click your link I’m just assuming it’s his latest vid). thermal-engineering.org/what-is-critical-thicknes…
So wearing a thin tshirt in cold weather for example can actually be colder than wearing no shirt at all. Same in reverse. I’m wondering if this material is doing that rather than being some sort of PCM.
harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
A good stop-gap while cities de-car-ify and rebuild green space.
Naich@lemmings.world 4 months ago
Don’t need to decarify to rebuild green spaces.
blazera@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Green space was overwhelmingly removed for car space
WalrusDragonOnABike@lemmy.today 4 months ago
And you don’t need to re:build green spaces to decarify. But you probably should.
thejml@lemm.ee 4 months ago
It’s going to need to be like 40F cooler pretty soon here.
Mbourgon@lemmy.world 4 months ago
What are examples of “broadband emitter “ fabrics that I can buy? The only links I can find are for this article.
tyler@programming.dev 4 months ago
Nighthawk in light shows how to make your own on YouTube. He has lots of videos about stuff like this. Someone else in the comments linked one of his vids.
kautau@lemmy.world 4 months ago
In all serious though I don’t think that term has ever been used outside of articles for this research
Mbourgon@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Dang it. Because something keeps me a couple of degrees cooler than some-wicking-fabric would be nice
TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 4 months ago
To be clear, the headline refers to yank degrees:
They didn’t really compare it to many materials it seems.
But this is only part of the tale…
Is it affordable?
Is it mass manufacturable?
Is it comfortable?
Is it durable?
Is it washable?
Is it crease prone?
Can it be easily mixed with other materials, e.g. to make it elasticated?
Is it recyclable?
Is it dyeable?
etc
AbidanYre@lemmy.world 4 months ago
We prefer the term freedom units, thank you.
Venator@lemmy.nz 4 months ago
I prefer the term Yankee doodlegrees, thank you.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Idk yank units sounds really catchy
Aux@lemmy.world 4 months ago
More like wank degrees, lol.
Solemn@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
… Silk is used as a cold weather baselayer in active wear? Not sure if it performs differently as an outer layer, but it’s got solid insulating properties for keeping in heat