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Superhydrophobic poly-4-methyl-1-pentene/polyvinylidene fluoride coating with excellent passive daytime radiation cooling performance

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Abstract

Passive daytime radiation cooling (PDRC) materials have attracted more and more attention due to their low energy consumption, no pollution and energy saving potential. However, current PDRC materials face many challenges in practical applications, such as expensive raw materials, complex manufacturing processes, and performance degradation due to surface contamination by dust. Herein, we prepared a poly-4-methyl-1-pentene/polyvinylidene fluoride (TPX/PVDF) superhydrophobic PDRC coating by a simple scraping method. By optimizing the amount of TPX in the scraping solution, the surface contact angle (CA) of the coating can reach 153.5° and the sliding angle (SA) is 8.9°, showing good self-cleaning properties. At the same time, the solar reflectance (Rs) can reach 91.6%, and the infrared emissivity (EIR) is larger than 0.97. Under direct sunlight in hot summer months, the coating sample can achieve a radiative cooling effect of 7.5 °C below the ambient temperature on average. Additionally, the TPX/PVDF coating was used as the roof and exterior paint of a miniature house (MH), and the cooling performance of the TPX/PVDF coating under direct sunlight was studied. The result indicated that the mean interior temperature of the MH covered with TPX/PVDF coating is 13.5 °C lower than that of the unmodified MH. Importantly, once the radiative cooling ability of the TPX/PVDF coating degraded due to surface dirt accumulating, it can recover automatically via its self-cleaning function. The TPX/PVDF based superhydrophobic and radiative cooling coating has a broad application prospect in the field of building energy conservation.

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Data availability

The data used in the present work is available in the manuscript.

Abbreviations

TPX:

Poly-4-methyl-1-pentene

PVDF:

Polyvinylidene fluoride

PDRC:

Passive daytime radiation cooling

SPDRC:

Superhydrophobic and passive daytime radiation cooling

ATW:

Atmosphere transparent window

CA:

Contact angle

SA:

Sliding angle

DMAC:

Dimethylacetamide

R S :

Solar reflectance

E IR :

Infrared thermal emissivity

CCP:

Commercial cooling paint

TPC:

TPX/PVDF coating

MH:

Miniature house

AC:

Artificial contamination

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Funding

This work was financial supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions of China (No. 21KJB430002), Program for International S&T Cooperation Projects of Changzhou City (No. CZ20210028).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Engineering, Jiangsu University of Technology, Changzhou, 213001, People’s Republic of China

    Feifan Xu, Fajun Wang, Sheng Lei, Junfei Ou & Wen Li

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Xu, F., Wang, F., Lei, S. et al. Superhydrophobic poly-4-methyl-1-pentene/polyvinylidene fluoride coating with excellent passive daytime radiation cooling performance. Appl. Phys. A 129, 266 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-023-06560-x

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