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Hierarchical Fabric Emitter for Highly Efficient Passive Radiative Heat Release

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Abstract

Intense heat waves pose a serious threat to public health and well-being, especially in outdoor spaces. Outdoor high-temperature environments without air conditioners are major challenges for humanity. However, an achievable approach that can provide outdoor cooling without consuming any energy is lacking. Hence, this work presents a novel hierarchical fabric emitter (HFET) used for sunshade sheds to provide radiative outdoor cooling for humanity, the HFET is composed of polyethylene/silicon dioxide/silicon nitride film, melt-blown polypropylene film, and polydimethylsiloxane film from top to bottom. In addition to reflecting 94% solar irradiance by its top surface, the HFET shows selective emission (0.82 in the atmospheric window and 0.38 outside the atmospheric window) on its top surface to outer space and broadband absorption (0.80 in the longwave infrared band) on its bottom surface from the inside. This bidirectional asymmetric emission enables the simulated skin to avoid overheating by 2–11 °C relative to the reverse HFET and bare cases under direct sunlight. Due to its excellent cooling capability, the HFET will be one of the most considerable solutions for outdoor cooling in hot summer environments.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge Prof. Jiayue Yang of the Optics-Thermal Radiation Research Center of Shandong University for technical support of the complex refractive index measurement. This work was supported by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institution (PAPD), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (52204222), and National Students’ Platform for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program (202210291001Z).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, 211816, China

    Zhangbin Yang, Xinpeng Tang, Feiyue Xu & Jun Zhang

  2. Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center for Advanced Inorganic Function Composites, Nanjing, 211816, China

    Zhangbin Yang & Jun Zhang

  3. College of Safety Science and Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, 211816, China

    Tingting Chen

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Supplementary Information

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42765_2023_271_MOESM1_ESM.docx

Supplementary data related to this article can be found at Section 1. Heat Transfer Model Analysis; Section 2. FDTD Simulations; Section 3. MB–PP Structure Before and After Hot Pressing; Section 4. LWIR Absorption of Common Functional Groups; Section 5. FTIR Spectrum of SiO2 and Si3N4; Section 6. Scattering Efficiency of PP Fibers with Different Diameters; Section 7. The Effect of Si3N4 Content on Optical Properties; Section 8. Solar Transmittance of the PE/SiO2/Si3N4 film; Section 9. Comparison with Commercial Sunshade Shed Samples; Section 10. UV Aging Resistance Test of the HFET; Section 11. Mechanical Property Test of the HFET. (DOCX 6503 KB)

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Yang, Z., Chen, T., Tang, X. et al. Hierarchical Fabric Emitter for Highly Efficient Passive Radiative Heat Release. Adv. Fiber Mater. 5, 1367–1377 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42765-023-00271-x

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