Scientists have invented a super white paint that can stop global warming

Scientists at Purdue University (West Lafayette, Indiana) have developed a super white paint with a light reflection coefficient of 98%. They hope to use it in passive cooling systems for buildings, which will heat up less in the sun, so less energy will be needed to run air conditioners. However, colleagues from the University of California went further and proposed to cool the entire planet at once with the help of paint. The whitest paint in the world immediately entered the Guinness Book of Records, USA Today reports.

Mechanical engineering professor Xiulin Ruan invented the whitest shade together with his graduate students. The team believes that such paint can even completely eliminate the need for air conditioning.

«Because the paint absorbs less heat than it emits, a surface covered with this paint cools below the ambient temperature without consuming energy,» the Purdue University press release says.

The researchers say that ordinary white paint cannot make a surface colder than the environment because it heats up, not cools down. Using the newly discovered paint to cover a 300-square-meter roof, according to the research, can have a cooling capacity of 10 kW. Ruan says this is more than the power of air conditioners used indoors.

According to Beth McGroarty, director of research at the Global Health Institute, Ruan’s paint comes at a critical time for the planet. «We are in the middle of a major climate crisis that is getting worse. The use of air conditioners is growing rapidly, which leads to an increase in global temperatures,» the scientist said. — «Finding sustainable solutions to cool our buildings is one of the most important ways to slow down the damage we can do to the environment.»

McGroarty believes that super white paint is an innovative yet simple and affordable option. «I think this is one of the many ways that we will see design tools benefit the climate,» the researcher emphasizes.

The mission of inventing a cooling paint that could reduce the need for air conditioning dates back to the 1970s, but the solution to the project has only just been found. Xiulin Ruan and his team have partnered with a tech startup to help produce the paint on an industrial scale and bring it to market.

According to the researchers, 3 liters of such paint will cover about 120 square meters. According to the scientists, it will take about 417 million liters of super-duper white paint to cover only 1% of the Earth. Currently, they plan to use the invention in megacities and observe how effective the paint is in terms of the greenhouse effect from harmful industrial emissions and environmental pollution from cars.