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A photosynthetically active radiative cooling film

Nature Sustainability (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

The sequestration of atmospheric CO2 through plant photosynthesis helps to mitigate climate change while providing other ecological benefits. However, heat and drought stress can limit plant growth and thus the mitigation potential of vegetation, particularly in drylands. Here we present a photosynthetically active radiative cooling film that decreases the ambient air temperature, minimizes the level of water evaporation and increases photosynthesis in dryland plants. This film comprises a photonic crystal layer sandwiched between polydimethylsiloxane and antifogging polyacrylamide hydrogel layers. The polydimethylsiloxane layer, featuring high mid-infrared emissivity (92% for wavelengths of 2.5–20 μm), enables maximal radiative cooling, the photonic crystal permits the selective transmission of photosynthetically active sunlight (71% for wavelengths of 0.4–0.5 μm and 77% for wavelengths of 0.6–0.7 μm) to boost photosynthesis and the polyacrylamide layer prevents the shading effect, thereby supporting plant growth. Field experiments indicated that our film decreases the air temperature by 1.9–4.6 °C and the level of water evaporation by 2.1–31.9%, consequently increasing the biomass yield of plants by 20–370%. According to our assessment, global application of the film on dryland plants could result in an approximately 40% increase in carbon sink compared with the case without the film (2.26 ± 1.43 PgC yr−1). This work highlights the development of next-generation technologies that can address the water–food–energy nexus of climate change.

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Fig. 1: Design and characterization of the PRCF.
Fig. 2: Cooling and water-saving performance.
Fig. 3: Plant cultivation experiments.
Fig. 4: Calculations of the impacts of applying the PRCF on global drylands.

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Data availability

All data are available in the main text and Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the microfabrication centre at the National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures (NLSSM) for technical support. J.Z. acknowledges support through an Xplorer Prize. This work was jointly supported by the National Key Research and Development Programme of China (2022YFA1404704 and 2020YFA0406104), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (52372197, 52002168 and 51925204), the Excellent Research Programme of Nanjing University (ZYJH005), research foundation of Frontiers Science Center for Critical Earth Material Cycling (14380214), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (021314380184, 021314380208, 021314380190, 021314380140 and 021314380150), and the State Key Laboratory of New Textile Materials and Advanced Processing Technologies (Wuhan Textile University, FZ2022011). B.Z. acknowledges support from the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20231540). Y.Z. acknowledges support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42125105).

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Jinlei Li, Yi Jiang, Jia Liu.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Artificial Functional Materials, Frontiers Science Center for Critical Earth Material Cycling, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

    Jinlei Li, Yi Jiang, Ning Xu, Bin Zhu & Jia Zhu

  2. Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Geographic Information Science and Technology, International Institute for Earth System Sciences, Key Laboratory for Land Satellite Remote Sensing Applications of Ministry of Natural Resources, School of Geography and Ocean Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

    Jia Liu, Linsheng Wu, Zhaoying Zhang, Dayang Zhao & Yongguang Zhang

  3. College of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China

    Gang Li

  4. Center of Pear Engineering Technology Research, State Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement and Utilization, College of Horticulture, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China

    Peng Wang

  5. GPL Photonics Laboratory, State Key Laboratory of Luminescence and Applications, Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, China

    Wei Li

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Contributions

J. Li, Y.J., B.Z., Y.Z. and J.Z. conceived the idea. B.Z., Y.Z. and J.Z. supervised the project. J. Li, Y.J., L.W., N.X. and P.W. designed and carried out all of the experiments. Y.J. performed the optical modelling. G.L. performed the greenhouse modelling. J. Liu, W.L., Z.Z., D.Z. and Y.Z. performed the modelling for large-scale applications. All of the authors discussed the results and assisted in the writing of the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Bin Zhu, Yongguang Zhang or Jia Zhu.

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Nature Sustainability thanks Yao Zhai and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Notes 1–9, Figs. 1–39, Tables 1–4 and references.

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Li, J., Jiang, Y., Liu, J. et al. A photosynthetically active radiative cooling film. Nat Sustain (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01350-6

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