this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2026
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I've been fascinated by this concept of passive radiative cooling, where you have some material that radiates heat to space in an infrared window where the atmosphere is transparent. Apparently, a sheet of such material can be a fair bit cooler than the ambient temperature without any consumption of energy? It would not necessarily be an alternative to air-conditioning, but it could potentially reduce the energy costs quite a bit, while lowering the heat island effect in urban areas.
There are some interesting applications where a radiative surface that is shielded from radiation coming back the other way can emit radiation to cool itself by a few degrees below ambient temperatures. There's one paper from a few years ago that describes being able to cool to 5°C below ambient temperature even in direct sunlight with some exotic materials.
Interesting stuff.
Looks like this paper on the topic was only released yesterday. It's more focused on the practical issues of deploying PRC panels, where other papers I've read seem to discuss the tech in a lab setting that may or may not be scalable?