A polymer paint capable of cooling surfaces without using any energy and conditioner. This is what researchers at Columbia University and Argonne National Laboratory in the United States have produced: a solution that saves money and preserves the environment.
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves himA polymer paint capable of cooling surfaces without using any energy and conditioner. This is what researchers at Columbia University and Argonne National Laboratory in the United States have produced: a solution that saves money and preserves the environment.
As we know, air conditioning accounts for 10% of global energy consumption. With rising temperatures and abnormal heat waves, viable alternatives to cooling become increasingly necessary.
Air conditioners are expensive, they waste too much energy, they feed the ozone hole and are not good for the environment. For this, the researchers came up with a polymer paint capable of cooling surfaces to about 6 ° C below ambient temperatures without using any energy.
It is a external PDRC polymer coating high performance with micro-scale air voids that acts as a spontaneous air cooler and can be fabricated, dyed and applied as paint on roofs, buildings, water tanks, vehicles, even spacecraft.
The polymer has a porous structure similar to foam. For some time there has been talk of PDRC projects, but so far the proposals could not be applied on roofs and buildings, among other things the white paint absorbs UV light and does not reflect the solar wavelengths well so the performance is modest. So the fact that it can be colored is a step forward in itself.
The solution process is based on a “phase inversion” and involves mixing the polymer with a solvent with water, where the polymer is insoluble. After painting the mixture onto a surface, the solvent evaporates leaving only the polymer interspersed with water droplets. Finally the water evaporates leaving air pockets.
Adjusting the percentage of water in the mix allows for precise control of the size and density of the air pockets, so they can be adjusted to maximize the reflection of solar energy.
In addition, the micrometer-sized voids give the coating a thermal emissivity similar to that of a black body, i.e. a perfect heat radiator. This high thermal emissivity of the polymer coating can be used to cool already hot objects.
Although the polymer coating works best when white by optimizing reflectivity, the researchers were also able to demonstrate the benefits of paint when dyed yellow and blue. With colored coatings you can get even 10 degrees less. Now the second step is that of marketing which is still in the testing phase. Full details are reported in Science.
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- The thermoelectric paint that transforms waste heat into electricity
Dominella Trunfio
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