Thermoresponsive Polymers: Thermoresponsive Polymer Induced Sweating Surfaces as an Efficient Way to Passively Cool Buildings (Adv. Mater. 39/2012)

The revolutionary natural concept of sweating is successfully adapted as a sustainable and energyefficient cooling-technology for buildings in urban environments. On page 5352, W. J. Stark and co-workers present low-cost, reversibly thermoresponsive hydrogel-mats enabling an autonomous, bio-inspired sweating-like action on building surfaces with a surface temperature reduction of up to 25 °C under tropical solar irradiance.