Baotou smart manufacturing initiates blue ocean in textile industry

Walking into the Tianjin Baogang Rare Earth Research Institute Co, personnel allowed media to get a close-up experience of rare earth high-emissivity thermal therapy fiber fabrics.

Tianjin Baogang Rare Earth Research Institute Co was established in August 2012, and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Baotou Research Institute of Rare Earths in Baotou city, North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

With these fabrics, the far-infrared temperature rises by 2.4 C, and the maximum heat storage value reaches 9.4 C. These numbers far exceed the national standards.

At the same time, the fabric has a light color, is easy to dye, and has high breathability.

According to Shi Wenjing, director of the Rare Earth Textile Materials R&D Center of the Tianjin institute, commonly seen heat-tech fabrics on the market mainly add functional components such as graphene and ceramic powder to the fabric through printing. Most of their prints are black, fade quickly, and have only one style.

"We have developed rare earth high-emissivity thermal therapy fiber fabrics by directly adding rare earth thermal insulation nanoparticles to the fibers, hence achieving better insulation performance," Shi said.

Rare earth elements can emit rays, namely light and heat, and can generate huge energy after atomic fission.

It is understood that rare earth nanoparticles can absorb the heat emitted by the human body and efficiently return far-infrared radiation to the body with a 94-percent emission rate. The fabric forms a heat cycle effect with the human body, inhibiting the loss of body heat, accelerating the movement of water molecules in the blood, and playing a role in thermal therapy.

"In the field of textiles and clothing, rare earth is widely used in fiber manufacturing, fabric pretreatment, dyeing, and other processes. Textiles synthesized from rare earth compounds, rare earth complexes, and rare earth coordination compounds have functions such as antibacterial, odor resistance, UV resistance, and color-changing luminescence," added Shi.

At the 2023 China Textile Sci-tech Achievement Matching Summit, rare earth high-emissivity thermal therapy fiber fabrics won the Top 10 Emerging Technology Awards in China's textile sci-tech sector. It has also received support from major textile enterprises in China.