Porous polypropylene produced by phase separation for high solar reflectivity and passive cooling

Abstract

Passive cooling techniques have gained widespread use in everyday life and various industries by utilizing sunlight reflection to cool objects without requiring additional energy input. Porous polymer materials possess the unique ability to provide both thermal insulation and solar reflection due to their inherent multiphase structure. In this study, we developed a porous polypropylene (PP) with a hierarchically structured surface layer using a simple and efficient solvent treatment method based on recrystallization. As a result, the porous structure and hierarchically structured surface significantly increase the solar reflectance from 11 to 86%. We found that by manipulating the recrystallization process and using reflective additives, solar reflectivity can be further improved. With the use of TiO2 and BaSO4 additives, a solar reflectance of 90% was achieved, while a solar reflectance of 93% was achieved with nucleating agents. In practical terms, these improvements result in significant temperature reductions in cooling performance tests compared to extruded PP sheets: 17, 19, and 22 °C for porous PP, porous PP/TiO2 or PP/BaSO4, and porous nucleated PP, respectively. The modification method introduced could help PP offer new possibilities for developing low-cost chemically resistant and thermally insulating layers in thermal management applications.