Global application of radiative cooling in grain storage

Maintaining lower temperature is critical for the grain storage. Radiative cooling is a promising passive cooling technology, however, its global applicability for grain storage remains underexplored. Herein, we explore the effectiveness of radiative cooling material applied to granary roofs across ten climates, covering cities essential for grain production, trade or shortages. We demonstrate that radiative cooling technology reduces the temperature of grain, and prolongs its safe storage duration, especially in high solar radiation regions with severe grain safety challenges. Radiative cooling material significantly improves compliance with various storage standards, reducing the maximum overheating degree hours of low-temperature storage standard below 400 °C·h. Under air-conditioning temperature of 16 and 20 °C, radiative cooling granary declines annual energy consumption by 5.7–24.2 and 2.3–24.8 kWh·m-2, reducing carbon emissions by 10.8–17848.1 and 3.8–16302.8 kgCO2e in various cities. All payback periods of radiative cooling material are less than 10 years, demonstrating strong economic feasibility and broad potential for promoting sustainable storage. Maintaining lower temperature is critical for the quality of grain storage. Here, authors explore the applicability of radiative cooling material applied to granary in ten climates, and demonstrate its broad potential for promoting sustainable storage, especially in resource-constrained regions.