A novel approach for developing high thermal conductive artificial leather by utilizing smart electronic materials

Abstract

Nowadays, artificial leather is an important commodity in daily life, especially in the fields of apparels, stationery and furniture. However, due to the maturity of producing technology and market segmentation, the industry trends to be saturated. Leather product manufacturers face intense competition and increasing production costs to survive on feeble profits. Thus, everyone is seeking a solution to break this predicament. Thanks to technical advancement and diversified intelligent electronics, a promising market opportunity has emerged that looks for innovative functional leather. This leather can exhibit high thermal conductivity and act as an essential component of electronic outside packages to prevent over-heating. This study aims to develop a high thermal conductive artificial leather (HTCAL). It incorporates smart electronic textile material (conductive yarn) into traditional artificial leather production through modifying the material and structure of its base layer. The result showed that the thermal conductivity of HTCAL was improved by 19.6% and, when wearing directly, a significant temperature gap between skin and the inner side of the leather occurred, which could offer a comfort cool feeling when worn in summer. This approach is a breakthrough to seize a new opportunity and offer an advancing direction. Further, this HTCAL can free the industry from periodical demand restriction, that is, seasonal limitation, and broaden product research and development into more fields. Thus, this approach can not only improve manufacturers' competitiveness and break them out of the current predicament, but also it creates new business opportunities.