Adaptive cooling strategy via human hair: High optothermal conversion efficiency of solar radiation into thermal dissipation

Natural species have developed complex nanostructures in a hierarchical pattern to control the absorption, reflection, or transmission of desired solar and infrared wavelengths. This bio-inspired structure is a promising method to manipulating solar energy and thermal management. In particular, huma...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2024-01, Vol.121 (4), p.e2312297121
Main Authors: Pal, Sudip Kumar, Jeong, Soohyun, Otoufat, Tohid, Bae, Hoyeon, Kim, Gunwoo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Absorption
Cold Temperature
Cytoskeleton
Hair
Humans
Keratin
Melanin
Phase Transition
Physical Sciences
Polymers
Solar Energy
Solar energy absorbers
Solar radiation
Thermal emission
Thermal management
Wavelengths
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Summary:Natural species have developed complex nanostructures in a hierarchical pattern to control the absorption, reflection, or transmission of desired solar and infrared wavelengths. This bio-inspired structure is a promising method to manipulating solar energy and thermal management. In particular, human hair is used in this article to highlight the optothermal properties of bio-inspired structures. This study investigated how melanin, an effective solar absorber, and the structural morphology of aligned domains of keratin polymer chains, leading to a significant increase in solar path length, which effectively scatter and absorb solar radiation across the hair structure, as well as enhance thermal ramifications from solar absorption by fitting its radiative wavelength to atmospheric transmittance for high-yield radiative cooling with realistic human body thermal emission.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.2312297121