Cooling material to increase efficiency without electricity
Researchers at the Nanophotonics Research Center at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) have developed a colorful radiation-cooling liquid crystal material that can cool without external power while simultaneously emitting color
Radiative cooling is a powerless cooling technology that releases infrared radiation as heat through the atmospheric window to reduce temperatures. It is attracting attention as a next-generation eco-friendly cooling technology that can supplement power-hungry air conditioners.
Radiative cooling materials for daytime use are colored white to reduce sunlight absorption. This provides excellent cooling performance but has the disadvantage that it cannot be used in buildings or vehicles that require aesthetics because it is difficult to implement multiple colors.
Therefore, the development of colored radiative cooling materials that meet cooling and aesthetics at the same time has recently attracted attention.
Previously known colored radiative cooling materials use light absorption to produce color, resulting in low temperature reduction. Alternative colored materials in the form of photonic crystals that use light reflection had excellent cooling performance but were limited in realizing distinct colors.
The team solved this problem by fabricating bent spiral liquid crystal photonic crystals. The commercial liquid crystal (LC242) used in this study is not only a material that reduces its temperature through radiation cooling, but also forms colored photonic crystals through its periodic structure when aligned into a spiral using an inducer.
The work is published in the Chemical Engineering Journal.
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