Harnessing Technology for Climate Resilience: A New Paradigm in Urban Cooling through Eco-friendly Cooler

Bangladesh is increasingly besieged by severe heatwaves due to the effects of climate change, rapid urbanization, and the pervasive use of heat-generating cooling appliances.While offering temporary relief, conventional cooling methods, such as refrigerant based air cooling systems, are not only unaffordable for most of the population due to their low income but also consume significant energy and intensify the urban heat island phenomenon by releasing heat to the outdoors.The purpose of this work is to develop an innovative, AI-enabled prototype called Eco-friendly Cooler that consists of a metal-organic framework (MOF)-based desiccant dehumidifier, swarm-cooler, and IoT-based sensors to deliver a low cost, sustainable and effective cooling solution based on environmental analysis.A year's worth of data from Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, was studied to identify heatwave episodes.As a solution, a prototype is built that can dynamically modulate temperature, humidity, and airflow to generate an optimal indoor environment, ensuring human comfort according to the ASHRAE 55 standard even during extreme thermal episodes without releasing heat to the outdoor environment.Due to its low power consumption, portability, and cost-effectiveness, our prototype will be accessible to a diverse demographic, addressing both economic and environmental sustainability.Our findings propose the widespread adoption of this new paradigm in cooling technology as an appropriate replacement to counter the escalating climatic adversities confronting Bangladesh and other climate-affected developing countries.