More efficient cooling methods are needed to reduce building energy consumption and environmental impact. This project aims to develop a material system that will enable passive cooling of buildings by selectively rejecting heat to space, through the atmosphere's transparency window. The proposed design aims to simultaneously enhance cooling power and the below-ambient temperature drop. Further, the material system will have a diffuse appearance, which is architecturally preferred. Scalable nano-manufacturing approaches will be developed to enable a cost-effective solution. The project will also investigate approaches to enhance the rate of heat rejection using geometric/optical elements. Lastly, the compatibility of these materials and approaches with building facades and rooftops will be explored. If successful, the project will drastically reduce the energy required for building air conditioning.
Published article in Journal of Optics.
H. Kim, R. Garcia-Mendez, T. Thompson, J. Sakamoto, A. Lenert. Nanoporous Thermal Filters for High-Performance Sub-Ambient Radiative Cooling. Materials Research Society Fall Meeting, Boston, MA, November 26-December 1, 2017.
A. Lenert, Enhanced Energy Conversion by Shaping the Spectrum of Thermal Radiation, Gordon Research Conference: Pathways for Solar Energy Conversion and Storage: Electricity, Thermal and Fuel, Hong Kong, June 17-22, 2018.
H. Kim, A. Lenert. Optical and thermal filtering nanoporous materials for sub-ambient radiative cooling. Journal of Optics, 20 (8), p. 084002, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1088/2040-8986/aacaa1
Materials that reject heat into Space by selectively radiating through the atmospheric 8-13 mm transparency band show promise in passive cooling applications such as peak electrical load reduction and dry cooling for arid climates. Being able to emit...