Scalable Bacterial Cellulose-Based Radiative Cooling Materials with Switchable Transparency for Thermal Management and Enhanced Solar Energy Harvesting.

Abstract

Radiative cooling materials that can dynamically control solar transmittance and emit thermal radiation into cold outer space are critical for smart thermal management and sustainable energy-efficient buildings. This work reports the judicious design and scalable fabrication of biosynthetic bacterial cellulose (BC)-based radiative cooling (Bio-RC) materials with switchable solar transmittance, which are developed by entangling silica microspheres with continuously secreted cellulose nanofibers during in situ cultivation. Theresulting film shows a high solar reflection (95.3%) that can be facilely switched between an opaque state and a transparent state upon wetting. Interestingly, the Bio-RC film exhibits a high mid-infrared emissivity (93.4%) and an average sub-ambient temperature drop of ≈3.7 °C at noon. When integrating with a commercially available semi-transparent solar cell, the switchable solar transmittance of Bio-RC film enables an enhancement of solar power conversion efficiency (opaque state: 0.92%, transparent state: 0.57%, bare solar cell: 0.33%). As a proof-of-concept illustration, an energy-efficient model house with its roof built with Bio-RC-integrated semi-transparent solar cell is demonstrated. This research can shine new light on the design and emerging applications of advanced radiative cooling materials.