Modern Technology versus Rapid Economical Growth in Smart Textiles Incorporated with Encapsulated Phase Change Materials Containing Latent Heat for Special Workers and Extreme Weather Conditions

Smart textiles especially phase change materials in the stage of development process and still many important accomplishments are hidden with the success corner of related researchers due to unavailability of testing standards for clothing containing micro capsulated PCMs, compatibility of materials, matching with material properties and thermal performances, difficult to incorporate PCMs in clothing structure, polymeric shell puts dead weight to clothing, durability of PCM incorporated textile in repeated uses, higher price materials, toxicity which are the question marks for smart textiles. Challenges associated with PCMs while there can be significant advantages to using PCMs in certain encapsulation (as reviewed above), there are also a number of challenges regarding the research. Phase Change Materials (PCMs) are getting attention because these materials can provide regulation of wearer's body micro-environment and provide comfort in the temperature fluctuations during the physical activities and others like sports, space wears, undersea low temperature rescue, automobile, medical application, extreme weather, health & safety applications etc. Leading players in the PCM market are BASF (Germany), Rubitherm Technologies (Germany), and Enlropy solutions Inc. (U.S.), Outlast Technologies (U.S.). With the increased demand of smart textiles and comfort wears, the PCM market in textiles is bound to get steady growth in future