Abstract
Radiative cooling is treated as a promising clean alternative for cooling energy harvesting by dissipating heat to the sky mainly at night in a passive manner. Yet the cooling flux of a stand-alone radiative cooling system is far below a conventional vapor compression refrigeration system, which hinders its wider application. If the nocturnal radiative cooling process acts as an auxiliary function of the solar collector, the aforementioned limitation of radiative cooling technique can be addressed. Therefore, a dual-functional collector which can offer heat in daytime and cooling energy in nighttime was proposed in this study. This hybrid photo-thermal and radiative cooling collector used the cheap and accessible black acrylic paint as the panel coating. A photo-thermal and radiative cooling prototype was manufactured and investigated experimentally in heating and cooling modes. Results showed that the thermal efficiency at zero-reduced temperature and cooling efficiency at zero-dimensionless temperature difference were 63.0% and 58.3%, respectively under clear sky condition. Besides, the collector achieved a net radiative cooling flux of 55.1 W/m2 in a clear night. Moreover, the hybrid system gathered a daily heat of 8.64 MJ during a consecutive 8 h, and a nightly cooling energy of 0.99 MJ in a consecutive 11.5 h.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
