Controllable-gradient-porous cooling materials driven by multistage solvent displacement method

Abstract

Passive radiative cooling holds significant potential for efficiently cooling terrestrial objects by simultaneously reflecting sunlight and radiating heat to the cold outer space. Numerous studies have designed high-performance radiative cooling structures using polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) due to its inherent extinction coefficient.However, obtaining highly favorable spectral characteristics for reflecting sunlight using PMMA, often done through the fabrication of micro/nanoscale structures, remains a central barrier for widespread application. Herein, we report a facile, economical, and scalable multistage solvent displacement-based method for fabricating hierarchically gradient porous PMMA metafilms with highly efficient daytime and nighttime passive radiative cooling performance. Here, the “ouzo effect” works as the driving force for micro/nanopore formation by solvent displacement, which also controls the size of the pores based on different solution ratios. The PMMA metafilm features an ultrahigh solar reflectance of 0.99 and superior mid-infrared thermal emittance of 0.97, which allows for the average and peak subambient temperature drops of 4.6 °C and 8.2 °C, respectively, along with an average radiative cooling power of 90 W/m2 during a 24-h uninterrupted thermal measurement. The hierarchically gradient micro/nanopore distribution of the PMMA metafilm significantly enhances the solar reflectance and thermal emittance within the atmospheric transparency window. Moreover,the multistage solvent displacement method is highly versatile and promising for fabricating porous structures, further offering a cost-efficient, eco-friendly, and sustainable manufacturing path for high-performance radiative cooling application.