Nuclear engineering

Electrical engineering

Physics

Energy (signal processing)

Dual (grammatical number)

Energy management

Operating system

Literature

Thermal energy

Engineering

Radiative cooling

Power (physics)

Zero-energy building

Materials science

Thermal

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Quantum mechanics

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Thermodynamics

Nature Communications

Reducing needs for heating and cooling from fossil energy is one of the biggest challenges, which demand accounts for almost half of global energy consumption, consequently resulting in complicated climatic and environmental issues. Herein, we demonstrate a high-performance, intelligently auto-switched and zero-energy dual-mode radiative thermal management device. By perceiving temperature to spontaneously modulate electromagnetic characteristics itself, the device achieves ~859.8 W m −2 of average heating power (∼91% of solar-thermal conversion efficiency) in cold and ~126.0 W m −2 of average cooling power in hot, without any external energy consumption during the whole process. Such a scalable, cost-effective device could realize two-way temperature control around comfortable temperature zone of human living. A practical demonstration shows that the temperature fluctuation is reduced by ~21 K, compared with copper plate. Numerical prediction indicates that this real zero-energy dual-mode thermal management device has a huge potential for year-round energy saving around the world and provides a feasible solution to realize the goal of Net Zero Carbon 2050.

Temperature-dependent dual-mode thermal management device with net zero energy for year-round energy saving