SrTiO₃ as a new solar reflective pigment on the cooling property of PMMA-ceramic composites

Polymer-ceramic hybridization is an important method for preparing functional materials. Strontium titanate (SrTiO₃, ST), a typical perovskite ceramic, has been widely applied in the electronics industry and photocatalytic fields. However, ST was barely reported to be utilized in cool materials. Herein, ST ceramic, as a solar reflective pigment, was introduced into a polymer matrix to prepare cool material. Specifically, the influences of both weight contents and surface grafting modification about ST on the properties of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA)/ST composites were investigated, which include cooling performance, surface roughness, thermal emissivity, dispersion of particles and mechanical strength. The obtained composites containing 20 wt% unmodified ST possess excellent cooling property due to high thermal emissivity (86.8%, in 8–13 μm) and high solar reflectance (70.7%, in the whole solar band) which increased by 142% than that of pure PMMA resin. Temperature test highlighted that the composites containing 20 wt% unmodified ST was only 26.6 °C, 11.4 °C lower than that of PMMA resin and only 2 °C higher than initial temperature. Moreover, the surface grafting modification of ST by the silane coupling agent was proved to improve the dispersibility of ST in PMMA resin. Both the cooling and mechanical properties of composites containing modified ST particles were further improved. Though the solar reflectance of PMMA/ST composites was lower than that of PMMA/TiO₂ composites, temperature tests showed that the PMMA/ST composites had a similar cooling performance with the PMMA/TiO₂ composites when the content of the ceramic particles were 5.8 v%. This work not only prepared the polymer-ceramic hybrid materials with excellent cooling performance but also expanded the application of ST ceramic in the field of composites.