A tailored indoor setup for reproducible passive daytime cooling characterization

Passive daytime cooling materials can lower global energy consumption owing to their autonomous cooling capability. Although a significant number of passive cooling materials have been developed recently, their performance characterization is still challenging. Field tests experience high variability due to uncontrollable changes in environmental conditions. Here, we design an indoor setup to characterize the performance of passive cooling materials reproducibly and independently of weather and season. Outdoor measurement conditions are approximated using a liquid-nitrogen-cooled aluminum dome, a solar simulator, and a wavelength-selective inverse sky-window filter In contrast to outdoor measurements, the results of various reference materials show remarkable precision and repeatability. Additionally, the impact of solar light intensity and temperature on the passive cooling performance can be experimentally investigated. Our setup is a first step in the development of a standardized test method to bring accuracy, reproducibility, and comparability to the emerging field of passive cooling materials.

Automated summary

Researchers have developed an indoor testing setup for the reproducible characterization of passive cooling materials, independent of weather and season variables. Compared to outdoor tests, this indoor method demonstrates higher precision and repeatability.