Abstract:

A significant amount of global energy consumption is used for the regulation of indoor building temperatures. In light of climate change, radiative cooling has been proven to be a green passive cooling solution with enormous potential in addressing this issue. By utilizing long-wavelength thermal radiation that can penetrate the atmosphere into outer space, radiative cooling materials can effectively lower building temperatures on a completely passive basis without any energy input. However, in many climate zones where ambient temperature varies significantly throughout the year, it is desirable to engineer the system such that radiative cooling can be controlled ( e.g. switch it off when temperature is low). In this context, dynamic radiative cooling has been proposed to adaptively cool or heat objects as the ambient temperature changes. In this talk, the fundamentals and development of radiative cooling, as well as recent advances of dynamic radiative cooling will be introduced. Besides, the prospects for future research in this field will also be discussed.