Preparation and Analysis of Sheath–Core Intelligent Thermo-Regulating Fiber

In this work, a skin–core composite intelligent temperature-adjusting fiber was prepared using the composite melt spinning method, with polypropylene as the skin layer and T28-type paraffin as the core layer, in order to obtain clothing fibers with a bidirectional temperature adjustment function. A differential scanning calorimeter was used to test the phase-change latent heat of fibers with different amounts of paraffin injections, and an infrared thermal imager was used to monitor the skin–core composite intelligent temperature-adjusting fiber bundles and ordinary polypropylene fiber bundles under the same heating and cooling conditions. The temperature of the fiber bundle was considered to be a function of time. The results showed that with the increase in the amount of the paraffin injections, the proportion of the paraffin component in the fiber and the latent heat of the fiber phase transition also increased. When the paraffin injection amount was 1.5 mL/min, the melting enthalpy and the crystallization enthalpy reached 65.93 J/g and 66.15 J/g, respectively. Under the same conditions, the heating speed of the intelligent temperature-adjusting fiber bundle was found to be slower than that of the ordinary polypropylene fibers, and the maximum temperature difference between the two reached 8.0 °C. Further, the cooling speed of the former was also observed to be slower than that of the latter, and the maximum temperature difference between the two reached 6.7 °C.