Radiative Cooling and Photothermal Coatings for Sustainable Energy Applications
A special issue of Coatings (ISSN 2079-6412). This special issue belongs to the section "Surface Engineering for Energy Harvesting, Conversion, and Storage".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2026 | Viewed by 910
Editors
Interests: principles and equipment of polymer processing; clean energy; thermal management; photothermal effects; nuclear fusion
Interests: radiative cooling; photothermal coatings; thermal management; spectral selectivity; functional coatings; nanostructured coatings; clean energy
Interests: radiative cooling; thermal photonics; thermal management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
In the context of global energy challenges and climate change, developing advanced coatings for energy-efficient heating and cooling has become a crucial technological frontier. Radiative cooling coatings can passively dissipate heat into outer space, reducing energy demand and carbon emission for cooling in various applications like buildings, cold chain logistics, communication and data centers, and warehousing of petrochemical products. Photothermal coatings efficiently harvest solar energy for heating, water purification, power generation, and anti-icing/de-icing. Together, these technologies represent a critical frontier in functional coatings, where micro- and nano-structures are shaped for advanced optical and thermal properties to achieve significant reductions in carbon emissions and energy consumption, and/or to enhance the safety and efficiency of the system.
Despite the remarkable progress in the field, the widespread deployment of such coatings requires further advances in material durability, scalable, and precise fabrication, environmental resilience, and system integration. This Special Issue will highlight research that addresses these interdisciplinary challenges, bridging materials science, optics, thermal engineering, and surface technology. This Special Issue aims to present recent advances in the design, fabrication, characterization, modeling, and application of radiative cooling and photothermal coatings. By compiling high-quality original research and comprehensive review articles, it seeks to advance the scientific understanding and practical implementation of these functional coatings. We welcome submissions that address fundamental principles, technological innovations, and real-world applications across diverse domains, including building energy management, personal thermal comfort, water harvesting, industrial heat management, and solar-driven processes, etc.
For this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are both welcome. Research areas may include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Novel coatings and composite materials for daytime radiative cooling, including polymer-based systems, ceramics, hybrid architectures, and biomimetic structures;
- Advanced photothermal coatings, such as selective solar absorbers, plasmonic nanostructures, carbon-based thin films, and semiconductor coatings;
- Sustainable coating deposition and manufacturing technologies, encompassing scalable fabrication methods, controlled nano-structuring, multilayer design, and integration strategies;
- Controllable fabrication of micro and/or nano structured coatings (e.g., multilayer films, core–shell architectures, and porous networks) and their structure–property relationships with optical and thermal performance;
- Intelligent or switchable functional coatings with radiative cooling and/or solar thermal regulation capabilities;
- Low-cost, sustainable, and scalable manufacturing processes for radiative cooling and photothermal coatings toward large-scale deployment.
We look forward to receiving your valuable contributions.
Thank you and best regards,
Prof. Dr. Weimin Yang
Dr. Fenghua Zhang
Dr. Xiaohu Wu
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Coatings is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- radiative cooling
- photothermal coatings
- thermal management
- spectral selectivity
- thermal radiation
- thermal photonics
- functional coatings
- nanostructured coatings
- anti-icing/de-icing
- coatings for clean or sustainable energy
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