Recent Advances in Electrospun Membranes for Radiative Cooling

Materials in Radiative Cooling Technologies

Radiative cooling (RC) is a carbon-neutral cooling technology that utilizes thermal radiation to dissipate heat from the Earth's surface to the cold outer space. Research in the field of RC has garnered increasing interest from both academia and industry due to its potential to drive sustainable economic and environmental benefits to human society by reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from conventional cooling systems. Materials innovation is the key to fully exploit the potential of RC. This review aims to elucidate the materials development with a focus on the design strategy including their intrinsic properties, structural formations, and performance improvement. The main types of RC materials, i.e., static-homogeneous, static-composite, dynamic, and multifunctional materials, are systematically overviewed. Future trends, possible challenges, and potential solutions are presented with perspectives in the concluding part, aiming to provide a roadmap for the future development of advanced RC materials.

Enhanced radiative cooling with Janus optical properties for low-temperature space cooling

Passive daytime radiative cooling that could provide sub-ambient cooling emerges as a promising technology to reduce household energy consumption. Nonetheless, prevailing studies are predominantly focused on surface cooling, often overlooking its adaptability to enclosed spaces with active cooling technologies. Here we present a multilayer radiative cooling film (J-MRC) with Janus optical properties in the mid-infrared region, consisting of the nanoporous polyethylene films, the polyethylene oxide film, and silver nanowires. The top side of the J-MRC functions as a conventional radiative cooling material to supply sub-ambient surface cooling, while the bottom side with low mid-infrared emissivity transfers limited heat via thermal radiation to the low-temperature enclosures. Our experiments validate that the J-MRC possesses an enhanced space cooling performance in comparison to the conventional radiative cooling film. This work provides a valuable design concept for radiative cooling materials, thereby expanding their practical scenarios and contributing to reduce the carbon emission.