Cooling Textiles Provide a New Solution to Urban Heat Islands

Abstract

Radiative cooling textiles offer significant potential for enhancing personal thermal comfort amid rising global temperatures. Recently, a spectrally selective hierarchical fabric was reported to emit predominantly within the atmospheric transmission window while suppressing parasitic heat from the surrounding infrastructure, thus combating the urban heat islands. This development represents a significant advance in personal thermal management, demonstrating the potential of radiative cooling fabrics to adapt to various environmental conditions.

References

[1.] WangZ, BoY, BaiP, ZhangS, LiG, WanX, LiuY, MaR, ChenY. Self-sustaining personal all-day thermoregulatory clothing using only sunlight. Science, 2023, 382: 1291

[2.] ShkolnikA, TaylorCR, FinchV, BorutA. Why do Bedouins wear black robes in hot deserts?. Nature, 1980, 283: 373

[3.] RephaeliE, RamanA, FanS. Ultrabroadband photonic structures to achieve high-performance daytime radiative cooling. Nano Lett, 2013, 13: 1457

[4.] LiangJ, WuJ, GuoJ, LiH, ZhouX, LiangS, QiuC-W, TaoG. Radiative cooling for passive thermal management towards sustainable carbon neutrality. Natl Sci Rev, 2023, 10: nwac208

[5.] YangZ, ChenT, TangX, XuF, ZhangJ. Hierarchical fabric emitter for highly efficient passive radiative heat release. Adv Fiber Mater, 2023, 5: 1367

[6.] Yang P, Ju Y, He J, Xia Z, Chen L, Tang S. Advanced janus membrane with directional sweat transport and integrated passive cooling for personal thermal and moisture management. Adv Fiber Mater. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42765-024-00444-2

[7.] PengY, ChenJ, SongAY, CatryssePB, HsuP-C, CaiL, LiuB, ZhuY, ZhouG, WuDS, LeeHR, FanS, CuiY. Nanoporous polyethylene microfibres for large-scale radiative cooling fabric. Nat Sustain, 2018, 1: 105

[8.] LiD, LiuX, LiW, LinZ, ZhuB, LiZ, LiJ, LiB, FanS, XieJ, ZhuJ. Scalable and hierarchically designed polymer film as a selective thermal emitter for high-performance all-day radiative cooling. Nat Nanotechnol, 2020, 16: 153

[9.] ZengS, PianS, SuM, WangZ, WuM, LiuX, ChenM, XiangY, WuJ, ZhangM, CenQ, TangY, ZhouX, HuangZ, WangR, TunuheA, SunX, XiaZ, TianM, ChenM, MaX, YangL, ZhouJ, ZhouH, YangQ, LiX, MaY, TaoG. Hierarchical-morphology metafabric for scalable passive daytime radiative cooling. Science, 2021, 373: 692

[10.] WuR, SuiC, ChenT-H, ZhouZ, LiQ, YanG, HanY, LiangJ, HungP-J, LuoE, TalapinDV, HsuP-C. Spectrally engineered textile for radiative cooling against urban heat islands. Science, 2024, 384: 1203

Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China(62175082); National Key Research and Development Program of China(2022YFB3805800); Multidisciplinary Research Support Program of Huazhong University of Science and Technology(2023JCYJ039); Open Project Program of Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics(2023083); Huazhong University of Science and Technology Double First-Class Funds for Humanities and Social Sciences