You may soon be able to do without air-conditioners (ACs) in your residence and office.
Recent research, conducted at Purdue University in the US, has led to production of the world’s whitest paint. Thanks to its extreme white shade, this paint can gradually reduce or ultimately eliminate the need for air-conditioning.
The paint has already made it to the Guinness Book of World Records as the whitest ever developed.
When the research was started seven years ago, saving energy and combating climate change were on the agenda, Purdue mechanical engineering professor Xiulin Ruan said.
The researchers’ goal was to make a paint that would reflect sunlight away from a building. In the process of making the paint “really reflective,” they also made it “really white”, Purdue University scientists informed.
According to a report in South China Morning Post, the paint has the capability to reflect 98.1 per cent of solar radiation and also emit infrared heat.
The paint absorbs less heat from sunlight than it emits, the researchers explained. Hence, a surface coated with the paint underneath the surrounding temperature cools off without consuming any power.
The paint can be used to cover a roof area of nearly 1,000 square feet that would equal the cooling power of 10 kilowatts.
“That’s more powerful than the air conditioner used in most houses,” Ruan was quoted as saying.
A high concentration of barium sulphate – also used in photo paper and cosmetics – and presence of different sized particles of barium sulphate makes it ultra white.
