Superwhite paint will cool the earth

This paint would be both cheaper to produce than its commercial alternative and could save $1 per day that would have been spent on air conditioning for a 1-story house of 100m2. It would take 37 liters to paint a 100m2 house. The world makes 55m tons of paint a year. Saving $1 a day would mean a payback for 37 liters of paint in 6-12 months. If paint production was doubled and the new production was used for this superwhite paint then 100K square kilometers could be painted every year.

2023-04-04: Rethinking how paint works can get us even farther

Unlike pigments, which require a different base molecule—like cobalt or purple snail slime—for each color, the base molecule for this process is always aluminum, just cut into different-size bits that oscillate to light at different wavelengths. It’s the lightest paint in the world— both in terms of weight and temperature. The paint consists of aluminum flakes dotted with aluminum nanoparticles. A Boeing 747 needs 500kg of paint. This paint could cover the same area with 1.3kg. Unlike conventional paint, structural paint doesn’t absorb infrared radiation, so it doesn’t trap heat. It can keep surfaces 10 degrees Celsius cooler than conventional paint.

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