Hong Kong Polytechnic University researchers have recently developed an environmentally friendly, solar-driven adaptive radiative cooling coating for building roofs and walls.
By coating a building in a reflective material, indoor temperatures can be minimized because of the self-regulation of its thermal environment. However, traditional passive radiative cooling materials are unable to automatically adjust cooling capacity in response to environmental changes. The new carbon dots-driven SARC coating address this challenge. The new photoluminescent radiative cooling nanocoating can reportedly convert solar energy into light energy. Additionally, as the solar intensity increases, the coating’s solar reflectance is enhanced.
The traditional photoluminescent cooling materials typically rely on rare earth metals and perovskite materials, posing environmental risks meanwhile the researchers used environmentally friendly polymer-based CDs as photoluminescent materials into radiative cooling coating. Nano-sized CDs were reportedly embedded into polymers to create a biologically harmless material, then uniformly coated onto hollow glass particles to create Smart Cooling Beads.