Abstract
Passive radiative cooling offers a sustainable solution to reduce carbon emissions in space cooling by simultaneously reflecting sunlight and emitting thermal radiation. However, the super-white property of conventional passive radiative cooling materials poses challenges for large-scale urban applications by conflicting with aesthetic requirements and neglecting impacts on urban microclimate and pedestrian thermal and visual comfort. Here inspired by the biological photoadaptation of coral, we present photoluminescence-based aesthetic composites as innovative urban skins that harness the enhanced light conversion of rare-earth-doped phosphors while decoupling from light-scattering-based whiteness, providing cool colours with improved urban compatibility. These composites demonstrate effective spectral reflectance of over 100% and peak reflectance up to 141% in their emission regions, despite a moderate overall solar reflectance (90.2–93.2%). With vivid yet angle-insensitive green, yellow and red appearances, the composites achieve subambient temperature reductions of 2.2–3.7 °C compared with ambient air and 6.1–7.9 °C relative to their non-photoluminescent counterparts. Moreover, their moderate whiteness alleviates excessive thermal and visual stress induced by trapping of sunlight in urban environments. Featuring excellent durability, compatibility and stability, these composites offer a scalable solution for energy-efficient and aesthetically pleasing radiative cooling in architecture, textiles and beyond, advancing passive radiative cooling technologies towards diverse real-world implementations.
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Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon request. Source data are provided with this paper.
Code availability
The code for the urban thermal and visual comfort model can be made available upon request.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by Hong Kong Research Grant Council via General Research Fund project 11200923 (to C.Y.T.) and Research Fellow Scheme with reference no. RFS2425-1S06 (to C.Y.T.), as well as by the Innovation and Technology Commission via Innovation and Technology Fund project ITS/128/22FP (to C.Y.T.). This work was also supported by City University of Hong Kong for the project ‘Fostering Innovation for Resilience and Sustainable Transformation’, officially endorsed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization under the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development (2024–2033) via the internal City University of Hong Kong account of 9610739 (to C.Y.T.). In addition, this work was also supported by a donation for a research project grant at City University of Hong Kong from i2Cool Limited, under project account no. 9220161 (to C.Y.T.). Furthermore, support was provided by National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 2525033, 62134009 and 62121005 to W.L.) and the International Partnership Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences or Future Network (grant no. 171GJHZ2023038FN to W.L.).
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Conceptualization: Y.F., A.P., C.Y.T. Methodology: Y.F., C.W., K.L., A.P., Z.L., Y.Z. Investigation: Y.F., X.M., X.-W.Z., Z.L., X.C., X.L., W.W., C.T.K., Y.-H.Z., X.X., X.Z., W.L., C.Y.T. Funding acquisition: W.L., C.Y.T. Supervision: W.L., C.Y.T. Writing—original draft: Y.F., C.Y.T. Writing—review and editing: K.L., A.P., A.L.R., L.L., W.L., C.Y.T.
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Extended data
Extended Data Fig. 1 Steric hindrance and optical contribution of SiO2 nanoparticles.
a, Photographs of PDMS-PL pigments solutions with and without different nano-sized SiO2. b, Simulated scattering efficiency of a SiO2 nanoparticle with a diameter of 50 nm, which well matches with the calculation result based on Rayleigh scattering. c, Dielectric constant of SiO2 as a function of wavelength. Its real part (\({\varepsilon }^{{\prime} }\)) shows negative values near 8.55 μm, which is known as the Reststrahlen band. d, Absorption efficiency of a SiO2 nanoparticle with a diameter of 50 nm in PDMS (red line) and in air (dashed black line). Higher peak values can be obtained for PDMS as its impedance matches with SiO2. e, Infrared emissivity for a 30 μm-thick PDMS with (solid line) and without (dashed line) SiO2 nanoparticles. Emissivity enhancement can be observed for several wavelength regions.
Extended Data Fig. 2 Size effect of SiO2 nanoparticles.
a-b, Schematic illustrations of the light scattering processes for both excitation and emission light with smaller (a) and larger (b) SiO2 particles. For both sizes, short-wavelength excitation light is directed toward the PL pigments, while larger SiO2 particles scatter the emission light, leading to increased re-absorption. c, Photographs of green, yellow, and red PLACs with varying-sized SiO2 nanoparticles. d, PLQYs of PLACs in (c). The excitation wavelengths are 400 nm, 460 nm, and 400 nm for green, yellow, and red PLACs, respectively. e-g, Effective spectral reflectance of green (e), yellow (f), and red PLACs (g) in (c). h-j, Corresponding PL contribution (h), overall solar reflectance (i), and light conversion efficiency (j) of PLACs.
Extended Data Fig. 3 Schematic illustrations of the light paths in conventional spectrophotometry and SFP method.
a, Light paths in conventional UV-VIS-NIR spectrophotometry for non-PL (left) and PL coolers (right). This configuration works for non-PL coolers as all the reflected light (at the wavelength of \(\lambda\)) is correctly collected by the detector. While for PL coolers, both reflected light (at the wavelength of \(\lambda\)) and re-emitted light (at the wavelength of \({\lambda }^{{\prime} }\)) are redirected to the detector. Due to the lack of monochromators in the integrating sphere, the re-emitted light will be misinterpreted as having the same wavelength as the reflected light (that is, \(\lambda\)) by the detector, resulting in misinterpretation of the contribution of PL emissions. b, Light paths in Step 1 of SFP method for non-PL (left) and PL coolers (right). For non-PL coolers, this configuration works similarly to conventional spectrophotometry. While for PL coolers, the added filter will reject re-emitted light (at the wavelength of \({\lambda }^{{\prime} }\)). Only reflected light (at the wavelength of \(\lambda\)) will be collected by the detector, leading to exact spectral reflectance. c, Light paths in Step 2 of SFP method. The background photon numbers are measured (left) as reference, followed by the measurement of PL coolers (right). Either reflected light or re-emitted light will be correctly collected by the detector array at corresponding wavelengths.
Extended Data Fig. 4 Influences of volume fractions on optical properties.
a-c, Photographs and pseudo (top), exact (middle), and effective (bottom) spectral reflectance of green (a), yellow (b), and red (c) PLACs with varying volume fractions of PL pigments. d-f, Overall solar reflectance for green (d), yellow (e), and red (f) PLACs, calculated from (a-c).
Extended Data Fig. 5 Angular insensitivity of PLACs.
a-c, Pseudo spectral reflectance of green (a), yellow (b), and red PLACs (c) under varying incident angles. d-f, Exact spectral reflectance of the PLACs in (a-c) under varying incident angles. g-i, Corresponding overall solar reflectance of the PLACs under varying incident angles. j-l, Corresponding color differences for green (a), yellow (b), and red PLACs (c) under varying incident angles.
Extended Data Fig. 6 Outdoor field test results for PLACs and NPACs.
a-b, Recorded weather conditions (top) and temperature (bottom) for 3-day outdoor field test in Changchun, China (October 2-4, 2024) (a) and in Hong Kong, China (January 18-20, 2025) (b). Continuous subambient cooling effects can be observed in both cases. In (b), the subambient temperature reduction (averaged from 10:00 to 14:00 for 3 days) for white substrate, green, yellow, and red PLACs is 2.4, 1.7, 2.1, and 1.1 °C, respectively.
Extended Data Fig. 7 Energy saving simulations.
a, Building model for energy saving simulations. b, Simulated annual cooling energy saving for green (left), red (middle), and yellow (right) PLACs. c, Cooling energy saved from PL emissions for three PLACs. d-e, Evaluation of annual heating penalty (d) and annual net energy saving (e) for the three PLACs.
Extended Data Fig. 8 Urban canyon simulation results.
a, Schematic of 2D urban canyon configurations and corresponding radiative heat fluxes for PUCM simulations. Diffusive reflection/absorption was considered for walls and ground. Multiple reflection for shortwave/longwave radiation was included to obtain surface temperature and corresponding radiative heat fluxes. The aspect ratio of urban canyon is defined as W/H. b-d, Simulated temperature (maximum values in daytime, averaged over 1 month) of walls (b), ground (c), and MRT (d) with varying surface albedos of walls and aspect ratio of urban canyons. The wall temperature is lower with high albedos and small aspect ratios, while ground and MRT are higher with high albedos and large aspect ratios. e-f, Shortwave (e) and longwave (f) contribution of the MRT in (d). The increase of MRT at high albedos is predominantly due to the shortwave radiation. g-h, TDP (g) and VDP (h) with varying urban parameters (albedo and aspect ratio). The dashed lines denote the thresholds for different levels of thermal/visual comfort.
Extended Data Fig. 9 Perceived color appearance and brightness in a PLAC-based urban canyon.
a, Perceived color of pedestrians in a PLAC-based urban canyon throughout the year under varying viewing directions (front, back, up, down, left, and right). b, Corresponding brightness perceived by pedestrians in a PLAC-based urban canyon under varying viewing directions.
Extended Data Fig. 10 Stability and flexibility of PLACs.
a, Strain-stress curves for PLACs polymerized with different weight ratios between PDMS and curing agent. b, Young’s modulus of three samples in (a). c, Strain-stress curves for cotton textiles with and without spray-coating of PLACs. d, Young’s modulus of the two samples in (c). e, Spectral reflectance of PLACs before and after superhydrophobic surface engineering. f-g, Spectral reflectance of NAPCs (f) and PLACs (g) before and after UV irradiation for 5 months. h, Photographs of green, yellow, and red PLACs before aging and after natural/accelerated aging. Scale bar: 5 cm.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Notes 1–8, Figs. 1–30 and Tables 1–5.
Supplementary Video
Waterproofing and breathability demonstration of PLAC-sprayed textiles.
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Fu, Y., Ma, X., Zhang, XW. et al. Photoluminescent radiative cooling for aesthetic and urban comfort. Nat Sustain (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-025-01657-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-025-01657-y
