Dr. Edwin Tso and his team (Miss. Yuwei Du, Miss. Siru Chen, Mr. Luke Christopher Chao, Mr. Kaixin Lin, Dr. Hau Him Lee, Dr. Tsz Chung Ho), as well as Prof. Michael Leung, won the Champion Prize in the 2020/2021 Environmental Paper Award held by The Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE) Environmental Division. The awarded paper is entitled “An energy-free and low-cost daytime passive radiative cooling paint for energy saving in buildings and decarbonization”. In this paper, the working principle and fabrication method of a novel daytime passive radiative cooling paint have been illustrated, and its cooling performance and the energy-saving potential in real building applications have been demonstrated. This paper not only provides an environmentally friendly solution to environmental issues (i.e. energy shortage and global warming) caused by building cooling systems, but also facilitates the green building evolvement and sustainability development.

Ir. Dr. Anthony Ma (Chairman of the Environmental Division, HKIE; third from the left), Dr. Edwin Tso (fourth from the left) and his PhD students, postdoctoral fellows and research assistants who participated in the Environmental Paper Award 2020-2021.

Apart from the Champion Prize, another publication authored by a team of SEE researchers led by Dr. Wei Wu, Dr. Lin Zhang and Dr. Denis Yu on “The effect of humidity on Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) – Comparisons of HVAC systems using condensation dehumidification and desiccant dehumidification in Hong Kong” also won a Certificate of Merit of 2020/2021 Environmental Paper Award. This paper was based on a one-year long investigation on indoor air quality in a variety of buildings in Hong Kong by the SEE team. Both measurements and simulations were conducted to study the energy consumption of traditional HVAC and desiccant dehumidification systems. The results highlighted the importance of humidity control in buildings in Hong Kong. In particular, measurement data on indoor thermal comfort in two buildings, the headquarter of Hong Kong and China Gas Co. Ltd and Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong show that desiccant dehumidification consumes less energy than overcooling and reheating dehumidification under the same dehumidification level. Life cycle costs of dehumidification schemes were also discussed based on economic analysis.

(From Left to Right) Ir. Dr. Anthony Ma (Chairman of the Environmental Division, HKIE), Mr. Xiaojun Yu, Dr. Lin Zhang, Mr. Don Cheng (Hong Kong and China Gas Company Limited), Dr. Wei Wu, Mr. Zhixiong Ding, Ir. Dr. Raymond K L Chan (HKIE Committee Member - Continuing Professional Development Committee Representative), Mr. Sammy Kong (Hong Kong and China Gas Company Limited)

The Environmental Paper Award 2020/2021 held by HKIE Environmental Division aims to encourage widespread emergence of environmentally friendly projects from the engineers, scholars and researchers.