Electrochemically Dynamic Materials for Solar and Radiative Thermoregulation

The solar energy has been the cleanest renewable heat sources for humankind. On the other hand, the rest of sky provides the clean cold source via radiative cooling, mitigating the energy consumption for refrigeration and space cooling. While both technologies have been significantly advanced by recent research in photonics and thermal science, there will be a shift of paradigm to combine and dynamically utilize both of them to broaden the applicability and efficiency for all seasons and climate zones. In this talk, I will summarize recent research progress in this field and introduce our works that use reversible metal electrodeposition to dynamically switch between a plasmonic selective solar absorber and a mid-IR-emitting solar mirror, which can provide year-round HVAC energy saving. Furthermore, the electrochemically variable emittance concept is also applied to ultralow-energy personal thermoregulation, bringing new opportunities in the human-building-energy nexus.