Scientists Invent Cooling Panel to Cut Air Conditioning Costs

Scientists at Stanford University have developed a new kind of environmental cooling device that could lower air conditioning bills significantly.

The team of three --- Professor Shanhui Fan and graduate students Aaswath Raman and Eden Rephaeli --- say they wanted to create a way to cool buildings, even while the sun is shining, succeeding "where others have come up short," Slash Gear quoted them saying.

What the researchers devised was a panel that reflects sunlight, and at the same time sends heat back into space.

The cooling panel, the researchers explained in a statement, is a passive technology --- a user installs it onto the roof or side of a building and it starts working.

The team says it invented the cooling panel with those living in the regions of the Earth in mind, along with great demand of electricity caused when the use of air conditioners peaks.

The reflection process, said the team, was an important part of the design process because other reflectors are poorly engineered and end up absorbing too much sunlight, defeating their ultimate purpose.

A "vast majority of sunlight" is reflected from the new cooling panels, the team said in a statement.

The new panel system also takes heat emanating from the structure to which it's attached and radiates that into space as well.

The panel emits thermal radiation "within the crucial wavelength needed to escape the Earth's atmosphere," said the Stanford researchers, who developed photonic materials that suppress how much sunlight the panel absorbs, while also radiating it at the key frequency range required to escape the Earth's atmosphere.

The new panel cooling system can potentially be used on houses and buildings, along with automobiles, off-setting up to 35 percent "of its air conditioning needs during the hottest hours of summer," the release said.