Chenxi Sui

All Publications

• Spectrally engineered textile for radiative cooling against urban heat islands. Science (New York, N.Y.) Wu, R., Sui, C., Chen, T. H., Zhou, Z., Li, Q., Yan, G., Han, Y., Liang, J., Hung, P. J., Luo, E., Talapin, D. V., Hsu, P. C. 2024; 384 (6701): 1203-1212

  Abstract

  Radiative cooling textiles hold promise for achieving personal thermal comfort under increasing global temperature. However, urban areas have heat island effects that largely diminish the effectiveness of cooling textiles as wearable fabrics because they absorb emitted radiation from the ground and nearby buildings. We developed a mid-infrared spectrally selective hierarchical fabric (SSHF) with emissivity greatly dominant in the atmospheric transmission window through molecular design, minimizing the net heat gain from the surroundings. The SSHF features a high solar spectrum reflectivity of 0.97 owing to strong Mie scattering from the nano-micro hybrid fibrous structure. The SSHF is 2.3°C cooler than a solar-reflecting broadband emitter when placed vertically in simulated outdoor urban scenarios during the day and also has excellent wearable properties.

  View details for DOI 10.1126/science.adl0653

  View details for PubMedID 38870306

• Standardizing the Thermodynamic Definition of Daytime Subambient Radiative Cooling ACS ENERGY LETTERS Sui, C., Hsu, P. 2024; 9 (6): 2997-3000

  View details for DOI 10.1021/acsenergylett.4c00909

  View details for Web of Science ID 001235227400001

• A Scalable Microstructure Photonic Coating Fabricated by Roll-to-Roll "Defects" for Daytime Subambient Passive Radiative Cooling. Nano letters Liu, S., Sui, C., Harbinson, M., Pudlo, M., Perera, H., Zhang, Z., Liu, R., Ku, Z., Islam, M. D., Liu, Y., Wu, R., Zhu, Y., Genzer, J., Khan, S. A., Hsu, P. C., Ryu, J. E. 2023; 23 (17): 7767-7774

  Abstract

  The deep space's coldness (∼4 K) provides a ubiquitous and inexhaustible thermodynamic resource to suppress the cooling energy consumption. However, it is nontrivial to achieve subambient radiative cooling during daytime under strong direct sunlight, which requires rational and delicate photonic design for simultaneous high solar reflectivity (>94%) and thermal emissivity. A great challenge arises when trying to meet such strict photonic microstructure requirements while maintaining manufacturing scalability. Herein, we demonstrate a rapid, low-cost, template-free roll-to-roll method to fabricate spike microstructured photonic nanocomposite coatings with Al2O3 and TiO2 nanoparticles embedded that possess 96.0% of solar reflectivity and 97.0% of thermal emissivity. When facing direct sunlight in the spring of Chicago (average 699 W/m2 solar intensity), the coatings show a radiative cooling power of 39.1 W/m2. Combined with the coatings' superhydrophobic and contamination resistance merits, the potential 14.4% cooling energy-saving capability is numerically demonstrated across the United States.

  View details for DOI 10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c00111

  View details for PubMedID 37487140

• Radiative electrochromism for energy-efficient buildings NATURE SUSTAINABILITY Sui, C., Hsu, P. 2023; 6 (4): 358-359

  View details for DOI 10.1038/s41893-022-01030-3

  View details for Web of Science ID 000920854200009

• Dynamic electrochromism for all-season radiative thermoregulation NATURE SUSTAINABILITY Sui, C., Pu, J., Chen, T., Liang, J., Lai, Y., Rao, Y., Wu, R., Han, Y., Wang, K., Li, X., Viswanathan, V., Hsu, P. 2023; 6 (4): 428-437

  View details for DOI 10.1038/s41893-022-01023-2

  View details for Web of Science ID 000920854200006

• Bio-Inspired Computational Design of Vascularized Electrodes for High-Performance Fast-Charging Batteries Optimized by Deep Learning ADVANCED ENERGY MATERIALS Sui, C., Li, Y., Li, X., Higueros, G., Wang, K., Xie, W., Hsu, P. 2022; 12 (6)

  View details for DOI 10.1002/aenm.202103044

  View details for Web of Science ID 000736060000001

• Ultra-Wideband Transparent Conductive Electrode for Electrochromic Synergistic Solar and Radiative Heat Management ACS ENERGY LETTERS Rao, Y., Dai, J., Sui, C., Lai, Y., Li, Z., Fang, H., Li, X., Li, W., Hsu, P. 2021; 6 (11): 3906-3915

  View details for DOI 10.1021/acsenergylett.1c01486

  View details for Web of Science ID 000763099000019

• Integration of daytime radiative cooling and solar heating for year-round energy saving in buildings. Nature communications Li, X., Sun, B., Sui, C., Nandi, A., Fang, H., Peng, Y., Tan, G., Hsu, P. 2020; 11 (1): 6101

  Abstract

  The heating and cooling energy consumption of buildings accounts for about 15% of national total energy consumption in the United States. In response to this challenge, many promising technologies with minimum carbon footprint have been proposed. However, most of the approaches are static and monofunctional, which can only reduce building energy consumption in certain conditions and climate zones. Here, we demonstrate a dual-mode device with electrostatically-controlled thermal contact conductance, which can achieve up to 71.6W/m2 of cooling power density and up to 643.4W/m2 of heating power density (over 93% of solar energy utilized) because of the suppression of thermal contact resistance and the engineering of surface morphology and optical property. Building energy simulation shows our dual-mode device, if widely deployed in the United States, can save 19.2% heating and cooling energy, which is 1.7 times higher than cooling-only and 2.2 times higher than heating-only approaches.

  View details for DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-19790-x

  View details for PubMedID 33257693