A scientist at Purdue University has invented a white paint that may cool buildings and forestall global temperatures from rising.
Xiulin Ruan, a professor of mechanical engineering, created a white paint that reflects 98% of the sun’s rays from the Earth’s surface. When applied to the roof of a structure, the paint cools surfaces by up to eight degrees during the day and up to 19 degrees at night, according to a report from The Latest York Times.
“In the event you were to use this paint to cover a roof of about 1,000 square feet [93 m2], we estimate that up to 10 kilowatts of cooling power will be obtained. That is more powerful than the air conditioners utilized in most homes,” said Ruan.
Scientists consider paints like this to be groundbreaking in cooling the planet and reducing electricity consumption, as buildings with the sort of white paint would require less air-con.
And Ruan doesn’t want to stop at buildings. Last yr, he announced that he had also invented a version of this paint for vehicles.
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World record holder
How white is the paint? In 2021, it was entered into the Guinness Book of Records the whitest paint on earth. But Ruan Ruan told the Times that was not the goal.
“We weren’t really trying to develop the whitest paint in the world,” Dr Ruan said. “We wanted to help fight climate change and now it’s more of a crisis and it’s getting worse. We wanted to see if we could help save energy by cooling the Earth.”
Unfortunately, the paint is not going to be available on the market for a couple of yr as scientists work to improve its durability and dirt resistance.
But with the planet recording record temperatures almost daily, the need for painting around the world couldn’t come fast enough.