Scientists created the world's whitest paint. It could eliminate the need for air conditioning.

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The paint has now made it into the Guinness World Records book as the whitest ever made.
The idea was to make a paint that would reflect sunlight away from a building.
The paint reflects 98.1% of solar radiation while also emitting infrared heat.
The whitest paint in the world has been created in a lab at Purdue University, a paint so white that it could eventually reduce or even eliminate the need for air conditioning, scientists say.

The paint has now made it into the Guinness World Records book as the whitest ever made.

So why did the scientists create such a paint? It turns out that breaking a world record wasn't the goal of the researchers: Curbing global warming was.

“When we started this project about seven years ago, we had saving energy and fighting climate change in mind,” said Xiulin Ruan, a professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue, in a statement.

The idea was to make a paint that would reflect sunlight away from a building, researchers said.

Xiulin Ruan, a Purdue University professor of mechanical engineering, and his students have created the whitest paint on record.
Making this paint really reflective, however, also made it really white, according to Purdue University. The paint reflects 98.1% of solar radiation while also emitting infrared heat. Because the paint absorbs less heat from the sun than it emits, a surface coated with this paint is cooled below the surrounding temperature without consuming power.

Using this new paint to cover a roof area of about 1,000 square feet could result in a cooling power of 10 kilowatts. “That’s more powerful than the air conditioners used by most houses,” Ruan said.

Typical commercial white paint gets warmer rather than cooler. Paints on the market that are designed to reject heat reflect only 80% to 90% of sunlight and can’t make surfaces cooler than their surroundings.

Two features make this paint ultra-white: a very high concentration of a chemical compound called barium sulfate – also used in photo paper and cosmetics – and different particle sizes of barium sulfate in the paint, scientists at Purdue said.

Researchers at Purdue have partnered with a company to put this ultra-white paint on the market, according to a news release.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat ... 378579002/

So we wouldn't need as much AC and thus less electric usage. Oh my goodness, think of the poor Electric Companies what will they do without all that surplus electricity? They might have to lower their rates or close power plants. Think of the lost profits. Oh, the horror of the idea. :sarcasm:
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Scientists created the world's whitest paint. It could eliminate the need for air conditioning.

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BKinzey wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 12:30 pm What happens in winter? I want my roof to reflect heat in summer but it is advantageous to absorb heat in winter.

Reflected heat can also be problematic. The one or two storey building reflecting on the hi-rise next door.

Being "snow blinded" is a thing.
Down here we don't have winter so it would be great in this area.

But the mandate ...
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Re: Scientists created the world's whitest paint. It could eliminate the need for air conditioning.

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DougB1946 wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 3:48 pm The heat energy has to go somewhere. It isn't eliminated, just redirected. Watched a TV special about architectural mistakes. One was a skyscraper with really reflective windows. Neighbors were not too impressed.
That was my thought. With a normal building the heat is absorbed during the day and released at night. With this paint the absorption is low to nil and at night it will release even more heat that would have been generated from within and would get damn cold by morning.

One of the architectural mistakes is in Dallas where the building was not just defective but was concave so the light was intensified and focusing on a part of the Dallas art museum Sculpture Garden. Lawsuits filed and the building owners had to pay to have a shade cover built to protect the garden.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Scientists created the world's whitest paint. It could eliminate the need for air conditioning.

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The walls. I have the whitest roof coating and the best wall insulation but still need an AC unit when it's 115 F.
My roof is so white you have to wear sunglasses and the reflection will burn your skin.
Now a paint that would change colors and make electricity would be amazing.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,”

Re: Scientists created the world's whitest paint. It could eliminate the need for air conditioning.

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Several years back, probably a dozen, a French scientist calculated that making every home's roof in the USA white would have the same energy effect as taking full 50% of cars off the road.

Our Abaco house had a black shingled roof when we bought it. We had it coated with white elastomer "paint" which had the dual effect of lowering the interior temperature by at least 10 deg F, perhaps more, AND making sure the shingles didn't come loose during Cat 5 Hurricane Dorian 2 years ago.

BTW, the Bahamian Government just shifted completely last week. (Former) PM, Dr. Hugo Minnis called an early election. 4 years ago, the FNM (Free National Movement) had swept the PLP (People's Liberation Party) out of office taking 34 of the 39 seats in Parliament. This was, of course, in response to the inept PLP's governing loaded with corruption then. But in the wake of the destructive and obstructive, not to mention totally corrupt, response to Dorian that devastated Freeport and most of Grand Bahama, as well as Central and Northern Abaco, those seats were guaranteed lost. I still have pictures of local police shipping stolen donated goods, appliances, and generators meant for Abaco to their relatives in Nassau.

Then came Covid. Initially, Dr. Minnis's government was very good at preventing the spread of the disease, although people kept going to Florida and coming back infected. Still, by the time my wife and I went down for 2 1/2 weeks in July, things were much better and many restrictions were relaxed. We did have to do a rapid test to exit the Bahamas, and mask wearing was required. But, after we got back, the Delta variant took off and the infection rate--and deaths, took off. All of the Abaco archipelago has about half the population of my NJ town, but the infection raw count was almost as high--however, the DEATH toll has been much, much higher. We had no deaths in June to August, and one death on Sept 1. Because our local and state vaccination campaign has been an overall success, but Dr. Minnis, despite his status as an MD, has been unable to motivate Bahamians to get vaccinated in large enough numbers, despite free vaccines.

So the PLP swept back into power blowing most of the FNM back out of power--I believe they took 30 of the 39 seats. Minnis did not lose his seat, and the new PM is Philip Brave Davis. Nobody actually expects Davis's government to do much better but there's always hope.

Unlike here, the government changed over almost immediately, in just a day or two, with no bitching, whining, or frivolous lawsuits claiming the election was "stolen".
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

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