Temperature-adaptive passive daytime cooling based on thermo-responsive hydrogels

• Applicant: Dr. Qimeng Song
• Subject Area: Preparatory and Physical Chemistry of Polymers
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 537718783

Passive daytime cooling has emerged recently as a promising strategy to alleviate the growing global energy consumption for cooling. By minimizing the solar absorption and simultaneously maximizing the mid-infrared radiative emission through the atmospheric window into outer space, materials with remarkable daytime passive cooling performances have been explored. However, conventional static passive cooling materials lack the adaptability to respond to the ambient temperature. They are thus only desirable in hot weather. In contrast, extra energy will be wasted to counteract the undesired overcooling in cold weather. This project will fabricate and investigate thermo-responsive hydrogels and thermo-responsive hydrogel-based metal-insulator transition phase change materials (MITPCMs) to dynamically regulate the optical properties in the solar and mid-infrared regimes, respectively. By combining thermo-responsive hydrogels and thermo-responsive hydrogel-based MITPCMs, this project aims to achieve a new class of temperature-adaptive passive daytime cooling materials for all-season heat management.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigators: Professor Dr. Ulrich Jonas; Professor Dr. Markus Retsch