Particle–Solid Transition Architecture for Efficient Passive Building Cooling

Abstract

Electricity consumption for building cooling accounts for a significant portion of global energy usage and carbon emissions. To address this challenge, passive daytime radiative cooling (PDRC) has emerged as a promising technique for cooling buildings without electricity input. However, existing radiative coolers face material mismatch issues, particularly on cementitious composites like concrete, limiting their practical application. Here, we propose a cementitious radiative cooling armor based on a particle–solid transition architecture (PSTA) to overcome these challenges. The PSTA design features an asymmetric yet monolithic morphology and an all-inorganic nature, decoupling radiative cooling from building compatibility while ensuring UV resistance. In the PSTA design, nanoparticles on the surface serve as sunlight scatterers and thermal emitters, while those embedded within a cementitious substrate provide build compatibility and cohesiveness. This configuration results in enhanced interfacial bonding strength, high solar reflectance, and strong mid-infrared emittance. Specifically, the PSTA delivers an enhanced interfacial shear strength (0.93 MPa), several-fold higher than that in control groups (metal, glass, plastic) along with a cooling performance (a subambient temperature drop of ∼6.6 °C and a cooling power of ∼92.8 W under a direct solar irradiance of ∼680 W/m²) that rivals or outperforms previous reports. Importantly, the design concept of the PSTA is applicable to various particles and solids, facilitating the practical application of PDRC technology in building scenarios.