Achieving multifunctional smart textile with long afterglow and thermo-regulation via coaxial electrospinning

People working in extremely cold environments, such as traffic police in the winter, need clothes that can keep them warm and show safety signals simultaneously, which is very meaningful for them. Based on such a requirement, developing the smart textiles integrating thermal regulation and luminescence functions is highly desired. Here, we utilized the coaxial electrospinning to achieve luminous thermo-regulated smart textiles. The paraffin wax (PW) and long afterglow phosphors were incorporated into the nanofiber with the PW as core and the polyacrylonitrile (PAN)/phosphors as sheath successfully. Moreover, the textiles possess the PW encapsulation efficiency of 52.1% (enthalpy of 64.08 J/g) and the afterglow can last for about 1 h. Hence, this work paves a novel avenue for multifunctional textiles and provides a meaningful guidance for comfort smart wearable.