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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (AP) — A new paint developed by researchers at Purdue University is literally the coolest.
when cultivation ruan, professor of mechanical engineering at the school, and her graduate students started working on this project seven years ago, they didn’t set out to invent a new paint color. Instead, they wanted to find a way to conserve energy and combat climate change. But what they found was that paint could do just that.
And so ruan and her The team has created the world’s whitest paint – a title it recently earned in the Guinness Book of World Records, a status that has never been achieved.
But this paint can do much more than break world records. It is considered a breakthrough in sustainability that can reduce or even eliminate the need for air conditioning and therefore the energy required to power it.
“The effect of this paint is good for trying to mitigate global warming, the urban heat island effect, and the electricity crisis,” he said. Xiangyu Li, a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who worked as a postdoctoral researcher on this project. Student in Ruan’s lab. “But my favorite part is that people can directly influence their electricity bills, and that’s something anyone can relate to.”
It was not easy to develop the formula of this paint. The perennial work builds on efforts to create a cooling paint as an alternative to traditional air conditioning dating back to the 1970s.
Researchers evaluated more than 100 different materials and narrowed their choices down to 10. From there, the lab tested about 50 different formulations for each material.
“I started looking at every white material in my daily life” li aforementioned.
That’s when they found barium sulfate. The dye is based on two key characteristics: the concentration and size of the barium sulfate compound.
The dye has a very high concentration of compounds that are also used to make photographic paper and cosmetics white. There are also particles of barium sulfate in the paint, which are of different sizes.
Most white paints have a single particle size that reflects the visible part of the solar spectrum, but Ph.D. It absorbs more ultraviolet and infrared light, according to Joseph Peoples. The candidate who also works in Ruan’s lab at Purdue’s School of Mechanical Engineering.
“The biggest challenge was to make the paint as reflective as possible for the entire solar spectrum,” Peoples said. Said.
The amount of light emitted by each barium sulfate particle depends on its size, Peoples said. Therefore, having a wider range of particle sizes allows the dye to scatter more of the full light spectrum.
Researchers think this whitest white paint is the closest equivalent to Vantablack, the blackest black paint that absorbs 99.9% of visible light. According to the study, the paint on Ruan’s lab reflects 98.1% of sunlight. This compares to other highly reflective paints on the market that reflect 80% to 90% of the light.
Ruan’s paint does not receive any energy, as it reflects almost all of the incoming sunlight. Then it goes a step further, radiating thermal energy into space beyond Earth’s atmosphere, meaning it sends out more heat than it receives.
“Let’s say it’s a dry sunny day outside and the temperature is 85 degrees Fahrenheit,” a surface covered with Purdue paint “will be around 75 degrees Fahrenheit,” Peoples said. “The paint cools itself below ambient, providing free cooling with no electrical input.”
By lowering the surface temperatures of buildings painted with this white paint, it also lowers the interior temperatures of the buildings in question. If buildings are not warmed by sunlight, this reduces or eliminates the need to turn their air conditioners on at high temperatures.
“We estimate that if you use this paint to cover a roof area of about 1,000 square feet, you can get 10 kilowatts of cooling power.” ruan said in a statement. “This is more powerful than central air conditioners used in most homes.”
ruan working to bring the paint to market and therefore her timing did not allow he To talk to IndyStar.
Although the difference between 98% and 90% may not seem like much, li he said that a building used to absorb 10% of sunlight and now absorbs only 2% – “so it actually absorbs five times less, which provides huge cooling benefits.”
When most people think of reducing carbon emissions, their thoughts go to the transport sector and industry. However, according to the United Nations climate report, buildings account for around 40% of annual energy-related CO2 emissions worldwide. The city said that 66% of community-wide greenhouse gas emissions in Indianapolis come from buildings. Most of these emissions are the result of building operations such as cooling and heating.
Therefore, reducing cooling means using less energy produced by fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas, which can lead to reduced carbon emissions that cause climate change.
“I think the discovery of white paint has some potentially big long-term implications,” said Jeff Dukes, executive director of the Purdue Center for Climate Change Research. “In many parts of the world where we want to cool our buildings for comfortable spaces for most or all of the year, this could mean huge potential energy savings.”
The whitest paint can also help reduce the urban heat island effect, according to Peoples. Urban heat islands are the result of cities replacing natural land cover with pavement, buildings, and other materials that absorb and retain heat. This increases energy needs, pollution levels, and heat-related illnesses.
Climate change is causing more frequent and severe heat waves. According to research from the Dukes headquarters, Indiana could see 30 more days above 95 degrees by the middle of the century.
A recent UN climate change report issued a “code red for humanity” when it comes to the climate crisis, emphasizing the importance of taking swift action to reduce emissions. Dukes said this paint may be just one tool in this toolbox.
For the average American, paint can also make a big difference to their pockets. li he said, because it essentially creates free air conditioning.
For a one-story home of about 1,000 square feet, paint can save about a dollar a day in air conditioning. That translates to about $30 per month or about $360 per year in electricity cost savings.
“Paint has the advantages of saving on electricity bills and also contributing to saving the world.” li “He connects with everybody,” he said.
According to the researchers, this dye can be used in a variety of ways. The most obvious are on commercial and residential buildings, both on their roofs with direct sunlight and on their side walls.
But the researchers add that it could go as far as being applied to road surfaces or cars to help cool the earth’s surface on an even larger scale.
The team has applied for a patent for the paint and is currently undergoing testing to bring it to market on a large scale. ruan and her The lab works with a commercial company to ensure the paint meets the reliability requirements of outdoor paints and can withstand the elements.
There’s no timeline for when the paint will hit store shelves. li he said, but it will likely take several years before customers can purchase it from local hardware stores. Paint from Purdue should be cost competitive with other outdoor paints, he added and use a similar fabrication process, so it is not difficult to manufacture.
“Our goal will be to buy another white paint if we can push it to market.” li aforementioned. “The most important way for us to make the most of scientific innovation in this field is to make it so that more people can use it.”
For this reason ruan and her graduate students loved the idea of painting: it’s accessible and easy.
Still, they know that getting people to adopt and use white paint will have some challenges. Particularly from a residential perspective, many homeowners may not be accustomed to seeing white walls or may want their home to stand out from the rest on their street.
“People aren’t using white paint everywhere to keep buildings cool anyway,” Dukes said.
The city of Indianapolis said it has ideas on how it can increase adoption of such apps. Office executive director Morgan Mickelson said the Office of Sustainability is always looking at how to make better use of the incentives it can encourage and encourage residents to use such materials.
City officials also recently enacted a Benchmark and Transparency Ordinance to help improve the energy and water efficiency of Indianapolis buildings. Building owners participating in the program must measure and then annually report how their buildings use water and energy. With this data, they can then work with the city to find ways to mitigate.
Mickelson said he thinks this paint could be an important way to do that when available.
“Our built environment has one of the greatest opportunities to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” he said, adding that the city will seek to find ways to use this paint on its buildings when available.
“It’s so exciting to have the purest white paint from Purdue University,” Mickelson added, “especially to be an Indiana institution that takes responsibility for this type of work.”
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Source: Indianapolis Star
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