Enhancing energy-saving potential of radiative cooling by integrating with humidity control in hot-humid climates

For a long time, there have been abundant studies on the application of radiative cooling to save cooling energy, basically focused on solving sensible cooling loads. Although earlier research has achieved exciting results, there is also a requirement for further enhancing its energy-saving potential, especially in hot-humid climates that require humidity handling. A fiber-gel composite (FGC) that can simultaneously reduce sensible load and latent load is proposed. In field tests, the FGC could maintain the relative humidity in a chamber within the comfortable range between 45%RH to 65%RH during humid nighttime and could achieve 6 ºC more sub-ambient temperature reduction than a pure radiative cooler during hot daytime. By applying an FGC-based window, simulation results show that a building can save 11% more cooling energy compared to a pure radiative cooler in hot-humid climates.