A Review of Nanoparticle Material Coatings in Passive Radiative Cooling Systems Including Skylights

Abstract

Daytime passive radiative cooling (DPRC) has remained a challenge over the past decades due to the necessity of precisely defined materials with a significantly high emissivity of thermal radiation within the atmospheric transparent window wavelength range (8–13 μm) as well as high reflectivity in the solar spectrum (0.2–3 μm). Fortunately, recent advances and technological improvements in nanoscience and metamaterials are making it possible to create diverse metamaterials. This enables the production of DPRC in direct solar irradiation. The development of a material that is appropriate for effective DPRC is also a noteworthy development in this field of technology. This review gives a thorough introduction and discussion of the fundamental ideas, as well as the state-of-the-art and current trends in passive radiative cooling, and describes the cutting-edge materials and various photonic radiator structures that are useful in enhancing net cooling performance. This work also addresses a novel skylight window that offers passive cooling developed at the Åbo Akademi (ÅA) University, Finland. In conclusion, nanomaterials and nanoparticle-based coatings are preferred over all other approaches for commercialization in the future because of their low cost, the ability for large-scale production, simplicity in fabrication, and great potential for further increasing cooling performance.