Electrospinning CaCO3/Porous PLA Nanofibers for Daytime Radiative Cooling

To develop high-performance and eco-friendly passive daytime radiative cooling (PDRC) materials, calcium carbonate (CaCO3)/porous polylactic acid (PLA) nanofibers were fabricated via electrospinning. This fabrication utilized PLA as the matrix and 40 nm CaCO3 nanoparticles as fillers, with ambient humidity controlled above 85%RH during electrospinning. The resulting nanofibers possessed numerous CaCO3/PLA interfaces and porous surface structures. Experimental results demonstrated that the CaCO3/porous PLA nanofibers achieved a solar reflectivity of ~92.3%, significantly exceeding that of PLA (~72.1%), CaCO3/PLA (~86.0%), and porous PLA (~79.6%) nanofibers. During outdoor testing, CaCO3/porous PLA nanofibers exhibited optimal PDRC performance with a temperature reduction of ~10.3 °C, representing a 6.1 °C improvement compared to PLA nanofibers. This enhancement is attributed to synergistic light-scattering sites generated by surface porosity and CaCO3/PLA interfaces, which collectively strengthen solar spectrum scattering. Furthermore, significant morphological degradation was observed after 80-day soil burial, confirming biodegradability. This study proposes a facile strategy for developing high-performance eco-friendly PDRC materials.