Research Projects

New advances in material science and engineering now make it possible to create structured materials tailored to reflect sunlight very strongly while simultaneously emitting infrared light. This enables to development of photonic radiator made of multiple nanolayers of selective materials for day-time sub-ambient cooling (well below the ambient temperature). In this project, the photonic radiative cooler will be developed with nanolayers of different combinations of selective materials (highly reflective for solar radiation wavelength and highly emitting for atmospheric transparency wavelength range (8-13µm) to the extreme cold of deep space). Different photonic radiative coolers will be tested and characterized for radiative properties to come up with the best cooler for use. Then, the developed photonic radiative cooler will be implemented in two major building applications. Firstly, this will be used as a roof envelope on a prototype room (small room will be chosen for this purpose) for daytime passive cooling and tested for various climatic conditions. Secondly, this will be embedded with cooling tubes to use for water cooling purposes and the experimental setup will be developed and tested. This will also include thermal storage and an auxiliary cooling system. Building simulation using the developed photonic radiators will be performed to evaluate its potential for different regions and climatic conditions. Investigators will also consider cases where this system is supplemented by a conventional cooling system to maintain the required conditions and/or evaluate thermal comfort aspects of the buildings working only with the photonic radiator. Energy, exergy and economic analyses will be also performed for all the proposed applications with photonic radiative cooler. This project will help us to develop indigenous daytime passive cooling technology, which strongly affects both energy security and environmental pollution.