Woolen Respirators for Thermal Management

Abstract COVID‐19 pandemic recently has a great impact on personalized protection and healthcare, especially in the area of the respiratory mask. However, due to the complex relationship between filtration performance and thermal management, there is a lack of investigation considering both characters in respirators. Woolen knitwears are recently well acknowledged as textiles for both hot and cold because of their superior water‐actuated shape memory performance. To incorporate protective function against bacteria, virus, microdroplet, and particulate matter, melt‐blown polypropylene can be introduced as a barrier layer. Herein, a robust and sustainable bio‐based woolen respirator with the superior ability of thermal management is prepared using simple knitting and melt‐blown technology. The as‐prepared respirators provide excellent protection from airborne particulate along with the high level of comfort, compared with a commercial mask. Moreover, it exhibits a high rating during wear trial. This provides a new insight to develop high quality sustainable respiratory mask with an excellent comfort performance from functional biomaterials.