Six innovations to beat the heat

From a thermally efficient t-shirt, and a thermodynamic mattress, to an ‘ultra-white’ paint that cools buildings and saves energy, these innovations promise to beat the heat while caring for the planet

The first half of 2022 has seen heatwaves in countries across the world including India, Pakistan, China, Japan, Europe, and the US. In Tokyo, the government in June asked 37 million people to switch off lights, in part as a result of a surge in air conditioning use. And Seville became the world’s first city to name and rank heatwaves.

With so many recent instances of extreme heat, discover six of the best innovations keeping people cool.

1. Thermally efficient t-shirt reduces the need for air conditioning

Materials science company LifeLabs has developed a new generation of thermally efficient textiles. Wearers of the US company’s CoolLife t-shirts experience a continual reduction of body temperature by three degrees Fahrenheit. The fabric is recycled, engineered polyethylene, a material that is transparent to infrared wavelengths, allowing heat to easily flow away from the wearer.

Wearing the company’s clothing can help to reduce reliance on cooling systems, which contribute significant amounts of emissions. Continuous cooling of three degrees of body heat can make a huge difference throughout the day and night, making it easier to target the use of HVAC systems for limited amounts of time and at the most efficient rates. Indeed, LifeLabs suggests setting the thermostat two degrees warmer in the summer and two degrees cooler in the winter – this, the company claims, can save up to 153 pounds of carbon dioxide per person per year.

The brand’s in-house technology saves water, heat, steam, chemicals, and plastic through its dedicated sustainability processes that track the energy footprint of every article of clothing. The clothing is 74 per cent recycled content by fabric weight, and manufacturing improvements have reduced water consumption by 70 per cent. For packaging, the company uses reusable fabric garment bags and other environmentally friendly materials. Read more.

2. ‘Ultra-white’ paint cools buildings and saves energy

Scientists have previously proposed that using white paint could help cool buildings and even the surrounding climate. Now, a team led by UCLA materials scientists has demonstrated a white paint that can reflect as much as 98 per cent of incoming heat from the sun. If widely applied to rooftops and buildings, the new paint could significantly reduce cooling costs.

Air conditioning is both expensive and energy inefficient — leading to a large amount of carbon dioxide emissions. A more sustainable method is to cool buildings using passive daytime radiative cooling. This is a process whereby the building’s surface is made reflective, to radiate heat out into space. One method to make surfaces reflective is to paint them white. This is the same principle behind wearing a white T-Shirt on a sunny day – the white shirt reflects more sunlight and keeps you cooler.

The best-performing white paints typically reflect around 85 per cent of solar radiation. However, the research team have demonstrated that replacing the titanium oxide commonly used in these paints with ingredients such as barite and polytetrafluoroethylene, also known as Teflon, can help the paint to better reflect UV light, keeping the building cooler. The researchers showed that the new paint could reflect as much as 98 per cent of incoming radiation. Read more.

3. Smart mattress uses AI to cool the bed

Both the mattress industry and the IoT (Internet of Things) industry have advanced by leaps and bounds. So, it was only a matter of time before someone had the idea to put the two together. Startup Eight Sleep has developed “smart mattresses” which the company claims will improve users’ “sleep fitness”.

The smart mattress, known as “the Pod”, consists of six layers, designed to improve sleep through thermoregulation. In addition to the more usual foam layers, the Pod contains a flexible and contoured grid into which temperature-regulated water is pumped from a separate water tank. The tank, dubbed “the Hub”, sits by the side of the bed and cools the water using “thermo-electric cooling elements in conjunction with a Heat Sink and two premium cooling fans like those found in upscale gaming PCs.”

The temperature of the water is adjusted using sensors integrated into the mattress, along with an AI-powered algorithm, which collects physical data used to predict the optimum temperature for each sleeper and heat or cool the mattress autonomously. In the future, Eight Sleep hopes to integrate more physical products, such as ambient factors like lighting, and other diagnostics to deliver a better night’s sleep. Read more.

4. Building with a ‘double skin’ keeps office workers cool

US-based Gensler has created a passive ventilation system that ‘breathes’ to regulate building temperature. The facade of the tower in Pittsburgh, Ohio, works by having a ‘double skin’ where two panes of glass are separated, creating a cavity that fresh air can flow into.

When sensors determine the weather conditions and temperature to be optimal, they open the cavity, cooling the building with fresh air. A solar chimney works in tandem to create a ventilation system, pulling stale air through open windows as it warms and rises.

While most buildings require air-conditioning that recycles stale air, or actively pumps it outside, Gensler’s system requires zero net energy. The natural ventilation system is independently activated by solar, which is predicted to work 42 per cent of the year. Combined with other eco-friendly features such as large amounts of natural light and rain-capture recycling, this building can reduce energy consumption by 50 per cent. Read more.

5. Neighbourhood cooling system saves energy and reduces costs

Distributed District Cooling (DDC) refers to a communal approach to cooling multiple buildings which could save residents and business owners substantial amounts in energy costs and fees. The Asia Pacific utilities company, SP Group, is trialling this method in the Tampines Central district of Singapore. A feasibility study run in partnership with Temasek found that the site could reduce its energy usage by up to 17 per cent.

A central chilling plant cools water that is then distributed throughout the system. The warmed water is then returned to the plant for closed-loop reuse of the water. The Tampines project reveals the success of retrofitting, in which 14 existing buildings are modifying their infrastructure to adopt this communal approach and thus improve their resource efficiency.

With multiple buildings already using their own chilled water-cooling system, a neighbourhood plant could free up considerable amounts of real estate, a huge benefit in densely populated cities.

6. Bladeless ceiling fan uses less energy – and kills microorganisms

Researchers at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have developed a ceiling fan capable of cooling a small room at twice the speed of a conventional fan (about 100 cubic meters per minute), whilst using just over half the energy (42 watts compared to 75 watts).

Named Vortec, the fan works by sucking cool air from below the fan, diverging the heat and moisture from those sitting underneath. The fan is shaped like a UFO, which allows air to be showered outwards from the top of the spinning vortex, creating an air curtain that falls and cools people around it. Conventional fans only blow air downwards, and people who are at the peripheries of its range don’t receive as much coolness as those directly underneath it. Vortec also does not have any exposed fan blades, making it safe to touch even when spinning and able to be mounted lower on the ceiling than a conventional fan.

In addition, an LED lamp in the centre of the fan provides light in different temperatures of white. An ultraviolet (UV) light source also helps to kill microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses, to reduce the spread of diseases through the air in confined spaces. During the lab test, the UV LED lamps produced by Seoul Viosys achieved an impressive 99.9 per cent disinfection of COVID-19. Read more.

Words: Hannah Hudson

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