Cooling without power

RESEARCHERS at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have devised a new way of providing cooling using inexpensive materials and no fossil fuel-based power. The passive system is essentially a high-tech version of an umbrella and can be used to supplement other cooling systems to preserve food and medications in hot, off-grid locations. The system allows emission of heat at mid-infrared range of light that passes through the atmosphere and radiates into the cold of outer space, unhindered by gases that act like a greenhouse.

The new system is described in a recent issue of“nature Communications” by a team led by Bikram Bhatia. In theory, it could provide cooling of as much as 20°C below the ambient temperature in a location such as Boston (-23 °C). So far, in the initial proof-of-concept testing,