Development of reflective cooling plasticized polyvinyl chloride/precipitated barium sulfate composites for building roof applications throughout entire solar wavebands

Barium sulfate (BaSO 4 ) has high reflectance throughout entire solar waveband (280–2500 nm). In this study, the melt blending method was used to incorporate BaSO 4 into a plasticized polyvinyl chloride (PVC) matrix. The aim was to create composites that exhibit excellent reflective cooling performance in the solar waveband, specifically for use in building roofs. By increasing the content of BaSO 4 from 0 to 200 phr, the total reflectance of the samples in the solar waveband showed significant improvement, rising from 6% to 48.8%. Furthermore, the thermal conductivity of the samples accordingly emerged apparent enhancement, increasing by 46.3% from 0.178 to 0.262 W m −1 K −1 . Additionally, when subjected to irradiation by a solar simulator under a solar light intensity of 1000 W/m 2 for 1 h, the indoor simulated irradiation temperature decreased from 41.4 to 27.4°C. Highlights White plasticized polyvinyl chloride (PVC) films with reflective cooling performance were prepared. The solar reflectance and cooling performance of PVC was enhanced by BaSO 4 . The reflectance mechanism of BaSO 4 in PVC was established.