Scientists in the US have developed a paint significantly "whiter than the whitest paint currently available".
Tests carried out by researchers at Purdue University on their "ultra-white" paint showed it reflected more than 98% of sunlight.
That suggests, the scientists say, that it could help save energy and fight climate change.
— BBC
The paint's whiteness opens up a range of cooling features that, applied at an industrial scale, could limit the built environment's contributing effect to global warming and its dependency on traditional air conditioning.
"If you were to use this paint to cover a roof area of about 1,000 square feet, we estimate that you could get a cooling power of 10 kilowatts. That’s more powerful than the central air conditioners used by most houses," predicts Xiulin Ruan, the Purdue professor of mechanical engineering, who led the research.
"Using high-accuracy temperature reading equipment called thermocouples, the researchers demonstrated outdoors that the paint can keep surfaces 19 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than their ambient surroundings at night," claims the study. "It can also cool surfaces 8 degrees Fahrenheit below their surroundings under strong sunlight during noon hours."
The Purdue research team sees this whitest paint as the closest equivalent of the blackest black, the nanotube coating Vantablack, which absorbs up to 99.9% of visible light.
3 Comments
Is it whiter than The Coolest White, a similar paint already developed by UNStudio a couple of years back with the exact same intent? https://www.unstudio.com/en/page/10966/unstudio-and-monopol-colors-develop-the-coolest-white-paint
I love that he's wearing sunglasses in this picture. Such branding!
When can we expect Anish Kapoor to announce that he's landed an exclusive right to use it?
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