Purdue Professor Xiulin Ruan and his team have developed the world s whitest white paint (Credit: Joseph Peoples/Purdue University)
Given that white was one of the first colors used in art in the 15th century, one would think that there is little room left to improve its whiteness. It turns out that is far from the case. A team of researchers led by Xiulin Ruan, a professor of mechanical engineering at Indiana s Purdue University, recently revealed an ultra-white paint that they believe could even help combat climate change.
The scientists, who spent six years creating the world s whitest white paint, assert that the options currently available make surfaces warmer rather than cooler. That s because they only reflect 80 to 90 percent of the sunlight and cannot make the exterior cooler than the surrounding temperature. The newly-revealed ultra-white paint not only reflects 98.1 percent of sunlight, but also prevents surface infrared heat from being absorbed.
Xiulin Ruan, a Purdue University professor of mechanical engineering, holds up his lab’s sample of the whitest paint on record. Jared Pike/Purdue University
At noon on a sunny summer day, the temperature of a conventional dark-colored flat roof can reach 150 degrees Fahrenheit (65 degrees Celsius), according to the U.S. Department of Energy. That heat will warm the inside of a building or a house as well, making it necessary to use air conditioning an energy expenditure that in turn often requires burning fossil fuels at electrical power plants, whose emissions contribute to the progression of climate change. It s a bedeviling problem that might be easily solved, if we only had roofs that reflected solar energy back into the sky, instead of absorbing it.
By Madeleine Muzdakis on April 16, 2021
Professor Xiulin Ruan with a sample of the whitest paint yet developed. (Photo: Jared Pike/Purdue University)
Combatting the rise in global temperatures requires creative science and innovative thinking. An exciting, new development was recently announced in the journal
ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces by an engineering team and nanotechnology team at Purdue University. The team had created an ultra-white paint the whitest to date which promises a powerful cooling effect which could help combat the use of air conditioning units which contribute to climate change.
Scientists had previously discovered a white paint that reflects 95.5% of light. This paint was based on calcium carbonate (CaCO3), which is found in chalk. While the darkest black (vantablack) absorbs 99.95 of light waves, the brightest white should reflect the maximum light possible. The an