Phase-change materials reinforced intelligent paint for efficient daytime radiative cooling

• Published in: iScience Vol. 25; no. 7; p. 104584
• Main Authors: Qin, Mulin, Xiong, Feng, Aftab, Waseem, Shi, Jinming, Han, Haiwei, Zou, Ruqiang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Inc 15-07-2022; Elsevier
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Materials science; Phase transitions; Applied sciences; Materials science; Phase transitions
• ISSN: 2589-0042; 2589-0042
• DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104584

Passive cooling of buildings has become increasingly important for green and low-carbon development, especially in the near decade where daytime radiative cooling technology (DRCT) has drawn attention with big breakthroughs. However, irresistibly importing heat from sunlight and surroundings results in notable temperature rise, thus limiting the cooling effect. Here, we report a radiative paint with latent heat storage capacity to store imported heat by coupling randomly-distributed phase-change materials (PCMs) based microcapsules with acrylic resin to enhance cooling performance. The bifunctional paint shows good performance in selected-suitable phase transition temperature, high enthalpy, high reflectivity in the sunlight region and strong emissivity in the atmospheric window region. The temperature measurements demonstrate that the paint possesses enhanced cooling performance of temperature drop and time buffering effect compared with the pure radiative cooling paint. This work offers the potential to broaden the applications of PCMs and DRCT for energy saving and environment protection.
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•Bifunctional paint with radiative cooling and latent heat abilities was developed•Phase-Change Materials used for isothermal storage of importing heat•High reflectivity of paint derived from micro size distribution of the microcapsules•Temperature drop and time buffering effect was achieved by bifunctional paint
Phase transitions; Applied sciences; Materials science