Eco-Friendly Passive Cooling with Recycled Packaging Plastics
MIE Associate Professor Yi Zheng’s research group Nano Energy Laboratory published their research on “Oil-Paper-Umbrella-Inspired Passive Radiative Cooling Using Recycled Packaging Foam” in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A and “Eco-friendly Passive Radiative Cooling Using Recycled Packaging Plastics” in Materials Today Sustainability. In both works, they studied eco-friendly passive cooling materials made of recycled packaging plastics for a greener and cleaner community. The low material cost and ease of fabrication provide a path for effective passive cooling, which requires zero external energy consumption (e.g., air conditioners), especially in less developed areas. Additionally, the worldwide market of recycled plastics can provide abundant raw materials, further eliminating the release of plastics into the environment. It offers an energy-efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly candidate for infrastructure cooling applications and provides a value-added path for plastic recycling.