Material World: Scientists Inspired by Polar Bear Fur and Better Camouflage
Material World is a weekly roundup of innovations and ideas within the materials sector, covering news from emerging biomaterials and alternative leathers to sustainable substitutes and future-proof fibers.
3M
Global manufacturer and distributor 3M has upgraded its Thinsulate Flowable Featherless Insulation after winning an ISPO Textrends Fall/Winter 2025/26 award.
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Since launching in 2022, the company’s Thinsulate Flowable Featherless Insulation has comprised at least 80 percent recycled content. Over the past year and a half, the insulation has advanced to feature at least 85 percent post-consumer recycled material.
The lightweight synthetic, high-loft insulation can fill a garment by “flowing” into the garment’s quality channels. The Bluesign System, Oeko-Tex and Global Recycled Standard-certified product, ideal for puffy clothes, also has a high wash durability and kept over 90 percent of its warm and thickness after five launderings.
The upgrade of the Flowable Featherless fiber is indicative of the global innovation company’s larger sustainability goals.
3M’s global headquarters in Minnesota is powered by 100 percent clean energy and more than 50 percent of its global electricity comes from renewable sources. The company has also pledged $1 billion over 20 years toward fast-tracking its environmental goals—from achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 and a 50 percent reduction of Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 2030 to reducing dependence on virgin fossil fuel-based plastics by 125 million pounds by 2025 and reducing water usage by 25 percent across all facilities by 2030.
Zhejiang University
A team of scientists has developed a new fiber inspired by polar bear fur. Aerogel, a light, synthetic material, maintains its heat-trapping properties even after use and laundering, according to a study published in Science.
Scientists from Zhejiang University’s College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, as well as the Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, were inspired by the polar bear’s fur, which has a porous core encapsulated in a dense shell that keeps the animals dry while remaining lightweight. The resulting aerogel fiber has the mechanical properties that allow for weaving and knitting while also being “excellent” thermal insulators, according to Brent Grocholski, an editor at the journal. The synthetic fibers can be produced at scale with a two-step freeze-spinning and encapsulation process, Grocholski continued.
While aerogels aren’t a new concept, their use in textiles is. The team of scientists overcame the traditional pain points of using the foam in fiber (considering its delicateness, limited strength and stretchability and overall poor processability) by covering the aerogel fiber with a stretchable layer—copying the core-shell structure of polar bear hair. Even though it has a high internal porosity (over 90 percent), the resulting fiber is stretchable up to 1,000 percent strain, significantly higher than previous attempts (roughly 2 percent strain).
On top of being washable and dyeable, the fiber retained its thermal insulation property after 10,000 stretching cycles at 100 percent strain. A sweater knitted with the aerogel fiber was found to have only one-fifth of the thickness of down, though similar performance attributes.
National Institute of Fashion Technology (NFIT) Gandhinagar
Students at the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NFIT) Gandhinagar in India have incorporated thermochromic and photochromic technologies into various textiles.
Thermochromic (meaning that the material changes color with temperature) and photochromic (material changing color based on light) clothes have been used in the past. Still, these students are taking those properties a step further to apply them to swaddling clothes—allowing caretakers to know if and when the baby has a fever.
“The idea was to provide users with a visual cue that is easy to identify and manage,” Avanish Kumar, assistant professor at NIFT, told the Times of India. “While attempts to scale it are on, we will also take up a project to integrate these features into the fabric when it is being made.”
The students also applied the technology to curtains, children’s games and military fatigues, using different dyes for different results. The military camouflage changes colors based on heat, turning yellow when in desert-like conditions. The curtains can adjust to three different colors depending on the time of day.
“Pigments with both photochromic and glow-in-the-dark properties were used,” an official told the Times of India. “Thus, when the temperature rises in the afternoon hours, the background turns deep yellow from white, providing extra shade. Likewise, during night hours, the heat absorbed gets manifested in radium prints that glow in the dark.”
