Abstract
The emissivity of nylon, cotton, polyester and acrylic fabrics coated with dried rat blood have been determined in the thermographic infrared region (~8–12 µm wavelength) at 40 °C and at the lowest humidity we could attain in the laboratory. Results show the emissivity of known nylon (ε = 0.87), cotton (ε = 0.88) and polyester (ε = 0.88) fabrics in our laboratory increase by 0.01, 0.01 and 0.03 respectively when coated with dried blood at a concentration of 100 µL of whole blood per 0.9 cm2 of fabric. An acrylic fabric (ε = 0.82) shows an increase in emissivity of 0.05 under the same conditions. We also investigated the change in emissivity of an acrylic fabric sample coated heavily with whole rat blood 8 years previously as a function of humidity and report that its emissivity increases from 0.90 at low humidity to nearly 0.94 at 90% humidity.