An LCA-assisted hierarchical design of radiative cooling coating for full life-cycle CO2 reduction

Reducing CO2 emissions throughout a product’s life cycle, mainly encompassing four stages of raw materials extraction, processing, service, and end of life, is essential for carbon neutrality. Passive daytime radiative cooling coatings offer CO2 reduction benefits, but primarily only during service stage. Life cycle assessment demonstrates maximized full life-cycle CO2 reduction requires innovations in both raw materials extraction and service periods. Here, we develop a full life‑cycle carbon‑negative passive daytime radiative cooling coating, achieving 0.571 ~ 13.709 tons of CO2-equivalent reduction per ton over its lifespan across all climate zones compared to the commercial reflective cooling baseline, equivalent to planting 32 ~ 762 trees annually. The key to this is sodium dodecyl sulfate-induced hydromagnesite fillers, produced via scalable CO2 mineral sequestration, which mitigate emissions in raw materials extraction stage. Moreover, the durable polyvinylidene fluoride resin envelops the above fillers with a hierarchical spherical-like structure, providing high optical characteristics and service stability, thus achieving service-stage emissions reduction. This work converges life cycle assessment, material design, and CO2 mitigation technology, building a powerful platform for carbon-negative radiative cooling coatings and relevant materials, while also inspiring more advancement in sustainable technologies for resilient urban futures. Current radiative coating strategies only consider reducing CO₂ emissions in service stage. Here, the authors present a life‑cycle–based design using a carbon‑negative filler and durable resin, achieving CO₂ reductions across the entire lifespan compared to the commercial reflective cooling baseline.