JOURNAL ARTICLE

Micro‐Nano Porous Structure for Efficient Daytime Radiative Sky Cooling

Abstract

Abstract With the aggravation of global warming and extreme weather, cooling demand has witnessed a continuous increase and is expected to increase tenfold by 2050. Radiative sky cooling (RSC) without any pollution and energy consumption has drawn worldwide attention in the past few years. Large‐scale and scalable porous cooling materials have greatly advanced the progress of this technology. Herein, a critical review on porous cooling materials with the goal of advancing their commercial applications is presented. The detailed design principles of daytime radiative cooling are first discussed to clarify the critical factors of porous structures for great cooling performance. What follows are detailed discussions on porous cooling materials from pore‐forming methods. Subsequently, the recent progress of the promising particle‐embedding porous structures, mainly including white and colorful coolers for various applications, is outlined. Additionally, some special cooling materials are highlighted to further broaden the applications of RSC technology. Last but not the least, the remaining open challenges and the insights are presented for the further advance of the commercialization progress.

Keywords:
Radiative cooling Materials science Commercialization Daytime Nanotechnology Evaporative cooler Passive cooling Porosity Mechanical engineering Meteorology Engineering Physics Composite material Atmospheric sciences Thermal

Metrics

185
Cited By
26.44
FWCI (Field Weighted Citation Impact)
148
Refs
1.00
Citation Normalized Percentile
Is in top 1%
Is in top 10%

Citation History

Topics

Thermal Radiation and Cooling Technologies
Physical Sciences →  Engineering →  Civil and Structural Engineering
Urban Heat Island Mitigation
Physical Sciences →  Environmental Science →  Environmental Engineering
Optical properties and cooling technologies in crystalline materials
Physical Sciences →  Physics and Astronomy →  Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
© 2026 ScienceGate Book Chapters — All rights reserved.