Year-Round, Fire-Safe, and Sustainable Solar Management Materials

At present, temperature regulation of spaces and buildings is responsible for 31% of the global final energy consumption and 30% of the entire worldwide CO2 emissions.

Although solar thermal conversion (high solar absorption) and passive radiation cooling (high solar reflection) have presented huge potential for the energy-free temperature regulation, the opposite mechanisms limit their application in one object, failing to respond to the changing climates year-round.

Besides, applied onto the surface of plenty of spaces and buildings, high fire safety and sustainable processability are vitally important yet urgent to be addressed.

Therefore, facing these challenges, the overarching aim of this ambitious yet achievable project (SOLAR-MATER) is to develop year-round, fire-safe, and sustainable solar management materials, via the spontaneous and energy-free switch of solar thermal conversion and passive radiation cooling based on a break-through approach, which is a creative integration of thermochromic microcapsules (TCMs), synthesis of biomass flame-retardant chain extenders, and solvent-free polymer coating technology.

In details, based on microencapsulation technology and structure design, TCMs designed will optimise the solar reflectivity, solar absorptivity, and IR emissivity, by introducing B-O and Si-O bonds with high IR emissivity to high-refractive TiO2-based shell materials; fully biomass flame-retardant chain extenders and inorganic shell materials will enhance the fire safety, with the condensed flame retardancy mechanism; meanwhile, solvent-free polymer coating will impart desirable processability and further enhance the sustainability.

SOLAR-MATER is a typical multidisciplinary and requires complementary expertise from the host (Polymer Chemistry, Fire Retardant Materials) and the researcher (Solar Energy, Radiation Cooling), contributing to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and European Green Deal of EU policies.