A research team from Purdue University has come up with the development of a white coating that can be used in cars and has a solar reflection of 97.9%, which helps maintain the temperature of the car.
According to Xiulin Ruan, professor of mechanical engineering and paint developer at Purdue University, the coating has been developed during the past period to be in its final stages of modernization qualified to be used in painting cars, aircraft and a lot of other different applications especially since it is thin and with a thickness that allows it to be widely used.
The research team announced the heat-reflecting paint more than a year ago but it was a discovery that did not receive attention at the time because the paint needed to become thinner for companies to use it, reaching a thickness of 400 microns at the time. By comparison, the thickness of the paint in the average car is only 100-180 microns, according to Defelsko.
Although the new paint was able to reflect about 98.1 percent of the sun's heat, cooling the surfaces painted with it from the inside by more than 4.5 degrees Celsius below ambient temperature, the paint was then too heavy for use in the automotive industry that is trying hard to reduce the weight of the car and thus improve aerodynamic efficiency.
Rowan, professor of mechanical engineering and paint developer at Purdue University, said: "After the announcement of the heat-reflective paint everyone from spacecraft manufacturers to architects to companies that manufacture clothes and shoes called me, but they had the same two questions: almost, where can I buy it, and can you make it thinner and thinner and thinner?"
Therefore, Rowan and his research team began experimenting with the materials anew and came up with a more modern formula, with a thermal reflection ratio of up to 98%, which is almost the same reflection as the first coating, while it is in a thin layer 150 microns thick.
George Qiu, a professor of mechanical engineering at Perdue University, said, "This light weight opens doors to all sorts of practical applications, now this coating has the ability to cool the exterior parts of aircraft, cars or trains. "Planes waiting on the tarmac on a hot summer day won't have to turn on the air conditioner saving large amounts of energy."
According to the research team, paint is especially useful because unlike other cooling methods for example air conditioners, once applied, its use does not emit greenhouse gases. The paint reflects and disperses solar energy in space, which means it removes heat from the planet.