Enhancing the radiative heat dissipation from high-temperature SF₆ gas plasma by using selective absorbers

Radiative cooling accomplished by tailoring the properties of spectral thermal emission is an interesting method for energy harvesting and high-efficiency passive cooling of terrestrial structures. This strategy, however, has not been extended to cool enclosed heat sources, common in engineering applications, and heat sources in high-temperature environments where radiative transfer plays a dominant role. Here we show a radiative cooling scheme for a high-temperature gaseous medium, using radiative heat extraction with selective absorbers matched to the gas-selective emission properties. We used SF₆ gas plasma as a model, because this gas is used in gas circuit breakers, which require effective cooling of the hot insulating gas. Our theoretical analysis confirms that a copper photonic absorber, matched to the ultraviolet-to-near-infrared-selective emission properties of the gas, effectively extracts heat from the high-temperature gas plasma and lowers the radiative equilibrium gas temperature by up to 1270 K, exceeding both blackbody-like and metallic surfaces in practical operating conditions.