Redesigning Human Cooling Solutions: Innovative, Sustainable Alternatives to Conventional Cooling

As reported by New York Times, climate scientists widely agree that even in the best-case scenarios where humans take dramatic action to lower carbon emissions, days with dangerous levels of heat and humidity are very likely to become more common in most parts of the world. An often go-to solution by many is an over-reliance on air-conditioning, yet this becomes a vicious cycle of increasing both carbon emissions and the Urban Heat Index, which inevitably contributes to the Earth’s rising temperature. For a sustainable solution to humans’ thermal comfort, there is a need to innovate and redesign ways humans can feel comfortably cool. While there are personalized cooling wearables in the market today, they have not achieved widespread usage as the market currently does not have a solution for a cooling wearable that is lightweight, ergonomic, and can provide sustained cooling at a low cost.

This Research Topic is focused on highlighting advances in cooling technologies for humans and redesigning how they achieve thermal comfort. Submissions should offer insights and provide alternative solutions that can help humans cope with rising heat levels while not aggravating climate change.

Works within the scope of this collection include efforts aimed at localized cooling solutions that significantly reduce energy usage and carbon emissions, the effect of localized cooling on human thermal comfort, innovative materials for sustainable cooling solutions, and other innovative ways that can help the human population cope with heat stress sustainably. Works aimed at quantifying human heat stress and thermal comfort are also welcome.

Research works using experimental, analytical and/or computational means are welcome. Review work is also very much welcome.

Specific topics of particular interest to this collection include, but are not limited to:
• Advancing thermoelectric technology towards practical use for cooling wearables
• Quantification of thermal comfort with non-conventional localized cooling
• Innovative and sustainable cooling technology as an alternative to air-conditioning
• Innovative materials aimed at sustainable cooling solutions
• The development of and advances in cooling wearables.

Keywords: thermal technology, cooling wearables, Sustainable cooling technology, Human cooling, Thermal solutions, thermoelectric, thermal comfort, cooling solutions, materials for cooling, advanced materials for cooling, localized cooling, cooling comfort

Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.