When combined with phase-change energy storage, radiative cooling enables durable personal thermal management by blocking external heat and promoting heat dissipation. However, conventional passive cooling textiles rely on nondegradable polymers and exhibit insufficient encapsulation stability of phase-change materials. Here, we present a diatom-inspired bilayer silk fibroin/SiO2 phase-change microcapsule (CRSFPCM@SiO2), fabricated via reverse micelle-assisted solvent evaporation and laccase-enhanced templated silica deposition. Laccase-catalyzed grafting of chitosan oligosaccharides promotes in situ silica deposition and confers antibacterial properties. The bilayer design of a soft organic inner shell with a rigid inorganic outer shell ensures chemical stability, sufficient light scattering, and reliable core encapsulation. Furthermore, a hierarchically structured textile (MetaSilk) was fabricated through solvent exchange-assisted electrospinning and hydrophobic spray coating. MetaSilk exhibited angle-independent high solar reflectivity (98.68%), IR emissivity (96.85%), and stable melting enthalpy (80.75 J·g–1) after 50 thermal cycles, making it highly suitable for passive cooling applications. Its hierarchical pores and asymmetric wettability facilitate efficient unidirectional water transport (1211.9%) and evaporation (110.04 g·m–2·h–1). The integration of these functionalities results in an outdoor temperature reduction of 16.9 °C and a cooling power of 96.2 W·m–2. This bioinspired and sustainable strategy paves new avenues for durable encapsulation systems in advanced thermal-moisture management.
Li et al. (Tue,) studied this question.