journal article·2026-02Open access

A Scalable, Durable, Fire‐Safe All‐Day Passive Radiative Cooling Coating for Sustainable Buildings

Zhewen Ma, Yuanhao Feng, Alex Y. Song, Toan Dinh, Min Hong, John Bell, Boyou Hou, Pingan Song, Wei Zheng

Advanced Functional Materials· Volume 36· Issue 10

Abstract

Abstract Passive radiative cooling (PRC) coatings play a significant role in reducing energy consumption by cooling buildings. Unfortunately, due to the lack of an integrated design, most existing PRC coatings are susceptible to UV aging and rain, and fail to resist aperiodic fire attacks, restricting their practical applications for buildings in the wildland‐urban interface (WUI). To fill this research gap, an integrated composition design strategy is proposed to develop a scalable, durable, and fire‐safe PRC coating comprising of a molecularly engineered fire‐retardant copolymer adhesive, hollow glass microspheres (HGMs), and boron oxide (B 2 O 3 ). Besides intrinsic fire retardancy, the copolymer endows the coating with a strong adhesion to diverse substrates. HGMs enable the coating to show good thermal insulation and a high solar reflectance (>94%), and B 2 O 3 promotes the in situ formation of a robust non‐combustible ceramic char layer in fires. The coating achieves an unparalleled fire resistance (UL‐94 V‐0 rating, LOI: 88.5 vol.%), a high mid‐infrared emissivity (>95%) for efficient heat dissipation, and exceptional durability against UV‐aging and rain. The performance integration makes as‐developed PRC coatings outperform most existing PRC counterparts. This work offers an integrated design solution to developing fire‐safe PRC coatings toward safe and sustainable buildings.
Source: crossref · Quality: baseline

Research context

OpenAlex topics: Thermal Radiation and Cooling Technologies · Urban Heat Island Mitigation · Building Energy and Comfort Optimization

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

Affiliations

Interdisciplinary Materials Research Center School of Materials Science and Engineering Tongji University Shanghai 201804 China

Institute of Photonics and Optical Science The University of Sydney Sydney New South Wales 2006 Australia

School of Engineering Centre for Future Materials University of Southern Queensland Springfield 4300 Australia

Centre for Future Materials University of Southern Queensland Springfield 4300 Australia

School of Agriculture and Environmental Science University of Southern Queensland Springfield 4300 Australia

Funding

Australian Research Council · National Natural Science Foundation of China · Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities

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