Colored Daytime Radiative Cooling Textiles Supported by Semiconductor Quantum Dots

Abstract

Radiative cooling, a zero-energy, eco-friendly cooling technology, has attracted tremendous attention recently for its potential of fighting global warming and climate changes. Radiative cooling fabrics with diffused solar reflections typically have reduced light pollution and can be mass-produced with currently available techniques. However, the monotonous white color has hindered its further applications and no colored radiative cooling textiles are available yet. In this work, we electrospun PMMA textiles containing CsPbBr_<i>x</i>I_3-<i>x</i> quantum dots as the colorant to achieve colored radiative cooling textiles. A theoretical model to predict the 3D color volume and cooling threshold was proposed for this system. As indicated by the model, a sufficiently high quantum yield (>0.9) will guarantee a wide color gamut and strong cooling ability. In the real experiments, all of the fabricated textiles show excellent color agreement with the theory. The green fabric containing CsPbBr₃ quantum dots achieved a subambient temperature of ∼4.0 °C under direct sunlight with an average solar power density of 850 W/m². The reddish fabric containing CsPbBrI₂ quantum dots also managed to cool 1.5 °C compared to the ambient temperature. The fabric containing CsPbI₃ quantum dots failed to achieve subambient cooling with a slightly increased temperature. Nevertheless, all of the fabricated colored fabrics outperformed the regular woven polyester fabric when placed on a human hand. We believed that the proposed colored textiles may widen the range of applications for radiative cooling fabrics and have the potential to become the next-generation colored fabrics with stronger cooling ability.