News

Dr. Qimeng Song (PCI) is launching a new Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)-funded project to tackle the rising global energy demand for cooling using an innovative, zero-energy cooling technique—passive daytime radiative cooling (PDRC). PDRC is an emerging sustainable cooling technology that optimizes material optical properties in both the solar spectrum (0.25–2.5 µm) and the atmospheric transparency window (8–13 µm) to enhance solar reflection and thermal emission. This enables subambient cooling without external energy input, providing a promising solution to lower cooling energy consumption and reduce environmental                                                 impact.

In this project, Dr. Song will introduce thermoresponsive hydrogels into the PDRC field. By integrating metallic nanoparticles and nanofibers, the goal is to develop thermoresponsive hydrogel-based metal-insulator transition phase change materials (MITPCMs) for adaptive PDRC, enabling year-round energy savings.

We welcome students to join the project as HiWi assistants, or for their Bachelor's or Master's thesis research.

Contact: Qimeng.Song@uni-bayreuth.de