Technology
Buildings need to stay cool in summer and retain warmth in winter. Today’s widely used cooling surfaces reflect sunlight and help release heat, reducing the need for air conditioning during hot weather. However, these benefits can come with a winter heating penalty: the same fixed properties can limit useful heat gain or allow heat to escape when warmth is needed. A surface designed for summer cooling therefore cannot always provide the best performance throughout the year. The challenge is to make surfaces adapt to changing conditions, helping buildings release or retain heat as needed.
Adjusting a surface’s emissivity—its ability to release heat as invisible radiation, is used to design surfaces that adapt to environmental conditions. By controlling how the material handles absorbed energy, the surface could release more heat when cooling is beneficial and less when heat retention is preferred. This would provide greater flexibility than a fixed coating, allowing the surface’s behavior to respond to changing needs throughout the day and across seasons.
For buildings, this capability could reduce both summer cooling demand and winter heat loss, improving comfort while lowering energy use. The same principle could also support thermal camouflage by allowing an object to adjust its appearance to heat-sensing cameras and blend more closely with its surroundings.
Advantages
Controlled surface thermal properties
Applications
- Adaptive thermal comfort
- Camouflage
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