Scalable and High-Performance Radiative Cooling Fabrics through an Electrospinning Method

• Published in: ACS applied materials & interfaces Vol. 14; no. 40; pp. 45707 - 45715
• Main Authors: Zhang, Yunlong, Yu, Jie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Chemical Society 12.10.2022
• Subjects: Functional Nanostructured Materials (including low-D carbon); radiative cooling fabric; electrospinning method; personal cooling; SiO2; PDF-HPF
• ISSN: 1944-8244; 1944-8252; 1944-8252
• DOI: 10.1021/acsami.2c13727

Reduction in human body temperature under hot conditions is a subject of extensive research. Radiative cooling fabrics have attracted considerable attention because the material reduces body temperature without any energy input, saving both energy and the environment. Researchers have been exploring effective and scalable preparation methods for radiative cooling fabrics. Herein, we employed the electrospinning method to prepare a radiative cooling fabric comprising the poly­(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropene) nanofiber and SiO2 nanoparticles. The fabric had a reflectivity exceeding 0.97 in the solar band and an emissivity of over 0.94 within the atmospheric window. The material achieved a radiative cooling effect of 15.9 °C under direct sunlight using a testing device built in-house. The method is simple and scalable and uses abundant and inexpensive raw materials; the technique can help promote the widespread adoption of radiative cooling fabrics.