And the phase-change fabric looks and feels just like cotton or wool. Spacemen, spacewomen and ordinary consumers should like it. Donghua University is working with scientists to develop new space suits and other garments for spaceflights, first the space suits for a projected 2007 space walk.

The fiber research development is still in an experimental stage. It was announced at the 2005 International Conference on Advanced Fibers and Polymer Materials. The meeting opened yesterday at Donghua's downtown campus.

Large quantities of special materials are needed to cope with drastic temperature change in space and also to make space suits remain elastic and comfortable when spacecraft are orbiting Earth.

The university's college of materials, garments and textiles will help design the future Shenzhou VII.

The energy-saving clothing is made of a phase-change fiber, a compound material capable of absorbing or releasing heat when subjected to heating or cooling during a temperature change.

The automatic heat adjustment is especially useful in maintaining the environment temperature between one's body and clothes, researchers said.

For instance, the clothes will be able to absorb heat from the environment so that people stay warm even in over-air-conditioned rooms.

The energy stored in the clothes will then be automatically released once people step into a hot or chilly environment to keep the body comfortable.

Wearers can move comfortably from air-conditioned rooms to outdoor sweltering heat.

"That is almost equal to installing a small air-conditioner inside your clothes," said professor Chen Yanmo, with Donghua's college of material sciences and engineering.

But the clothing looks and feels just like garments made of common cotton or wool, he said.

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