Hua Mao Nano-Tech Co. Ltd. has developed an exciting new textile that incorporates very finely ground jade from Hualien County's Fengtian to cool off those wearing it.
Lai Yuan, the company's special assistant to the CEO, said experiments have shown that the new jade textile can reduce body temperature by 1.2 degrees Celsius. The principle behind the invention is very simple: because jade has a higher specific heat, even in situations where there is a lot of heat energy, jade increases in temperature very slowly.
The company, located in Taoyuan's Luchu Township, has been researching how to incorporate particles within clothing. Yuan explained that to make yellow clothing, add yellow particles when the yarn is made, and the textile will take on that color. The company has developed a way of incorporating the jade from Fengtian into cloth in particle form, thereby producing clothing that actually cools the wearer.
Yuan said the specific heat of a substance is the amount of heat that is needed to increase the temperature of 1 gram of the substance by 1 degree Celsius. In the case of water, that number is 1, a relatively low number. That is why water heats up and cools down quickly. Jade, on the other hand, has a specific heat of 0.8, even lower than that of water, so it takes more heat energy to make jade get hot.
When a piece of clothing is sewn using the new textile, the heat produced by the body does not raise the temperature of the clothing as easily as if it were made of ordinary cloth. For this reason, the garment feels cool to the wearer. Yuan said a difference of just 0.5 degrees can give the sensation of coolness, and experiments have shown that textiles impregnated with jade particles can lower the temperature 1.2 degrees, which yields a palpable feeling of coolness.
Since jade occurs naturally with asbestos, which is harmful to the human body, Hua Mao has teamed up with the Stone and Resource Industry R&D Center to have all asbestos in the jade fully removed. After crushing and powdering, Yuan said, the company uses the fine material that is carefully sieved and very fine. There is a limited market for this material, so the price is quite reasonable.
At this time, well-known brands such as Taiwan's Edwin (seller of "Something" jeans), Baleno and Yafang in mainland China are using jade textiles for their lines. Yuan believes that with global warming becoming more and more serious, in the future, cool clothing will see a great prospective market, and his company intends to continue research to produce clothing that not only cools, but which could also repel insects and resist odors.
(This article originally appeared in The Liberty Times July 12.)