Arnhem, The Netherlands, 16, November, 2021 - We are happy to announce our new research partner, HAMK University! Founded in 1840 in Helsinki, Finland, the university has four research units including HAMK Bio, HAMK Edu, HAMK Smart and HAMK Tech. Over 140 research, development and innovation projects are carried out each year. The Active Cooling Vest by Teijin provides firefighters and industrial workers in high heat environments a way to automatically help cool their body temperature to avoid heat stress.

Active Cooling Vest

The Active Cooling Vest is a product created by the Solutions 2.0 department of Teijin in The Netherlands. The product is unique to the market, as other body cooling solutions such as ice based or phase change materials based vests tend to have a lot of drawbacks, most commonly a limited use time, heavy weight and a fragile structure.

Plug-and-play body cooling clothing

It works by using an innovative and lightweight textile that quickly removes body sweat to maximize the body’s natural cooling performance. With the help of six high performance fans that are powered by a powerful battery, they assist the textile to further speed up the process, increasing overall cooling performance. The battery unit can easily be replaceable and charged in case of emergencies. The system is completely plug-and-play, no additional preparation is required. Due to the special fitting, the Active Cooling Vest can be used under any jacket or firefighter overalls.

Usability of the Active Cooling Vest for industrial work tasks

The vests acquired by HAMK University will be used for researching and testing its applicability in different industrial work tasks. Other than tests in a lab controlled environment, field tests will be done for example in glassblowing factories where temperatures lie between 870 and 1,040°C or 1,600 and 1,900°F respectively. Those extreme temperatures can cause the body to quickly overheat, bringing the dangers of heat stress or in more serious cases, heat strokes.

Improving job satisfaction and productivity with the Active Cooling Vest

Kimmo Vänni, a researcher at HAMK University said the following: “HAMK University purchased 6 Active Cooling Vests for researching and testing their usability and features in different industrial work tasks. One test will be carried out in a glassblowing factory where the working environment is warm, and cooling of body may increase job satisfaction and productivity. Another research idea is to test Active Cooling Vests together with wearable exoskeleton, and to measure users’ job satisfaction. There are many strenuous work tasks in industry where both exoskeletons and cooling are needed. Usability testing will be carried out during Spring 2022 in different factories, and before that HAMK University is going to test the combination of Teijin Active Cooling Vest and different exoskeletons in the lab environment.”

Would you like to know more about the Active Cooling Vest and get in contact with our sales team? Click here