Zero energy cooling

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If that's the super white paint that is so good at emitting IR light that is makes it colder than whatever it is painted on, yes. Seriously cool and counter intuitive.

The unknown questions include how well it stands up to weather and how much it costs. Apparently the paint needs a very high proportion of pigment, which means it might be quite expensive.
 
Paint the planet with it. GW sorted. No more of that boring old news?
 
The unknown questions include how well it stands up to weather and how much it costs. Apparently the paint needs a very high proportion of pigment, which means it might be quite expensive.

I was thinking it might be useful to paint the outside of my Stevenson Screen.
 
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It's all about emissivity. Low emissivity surfaces reduce absorption or emission of heat radiation. Emissivity is the 'e' in Low-e glass and is how insulation foils are supposed to work. Big problem with that is that once something touches the surface of the foil the low-e property drops to zero. In other words they only work if they are suspended in a cavity, which is very difficult to achieve.

The video is interesting but low-e paint has been around for years. It's commonly used on commercial flat roofs. The problem is that emissivity is only part of the thermal dynamic, the rest being conductivity and convection. How would you use the product? I suppose you could paint yourself all over. Although I seem to recall that if you paint yourself all over your supposed to leave a little patch - between 2 and 3 inches would probably do it. We don't need to know which 2" to 3" patch you decide to leave Harry. ;)

Nasa uses gold foil on their spacecraft. Technically polished silver is better than gold but I reckon they use gold because it doesn't tarnish or corrode, like silver would. So the alternative is coat everything in gold.
 
It's all about emissivity. Low emissivity surfaces reduce absorption or emission of heat radiation. Emissivity is the 'e' in Low-e glass and is how insulation foils are supposed to work. Big problem with that is that once something touches the surface of the foil the low-e property drops to zero. In other words they only work if they are suspended in a cavity, which is very difficult to achieve.

The video is interesting but low-e paint has been around for years. It's commonly used on commercial flat roofs. The problem is that emissivity is only part of the thermal dynamic, the rest being conductivity and convection. How would you use the product? I suppose you could paint yourself all over. Although I seem to recall that if you paint yourself all over your supposed to leave a little patch - between 2 and 3 inches would probably do it. We don't need to know which 2" to 3" patch you decide to leave Harry. ;)

Nasa uses gold foil on their spacecraft. Technically polished silver is better than gold but I reckon they use gold because it doesn't tarnish or corrode, like silver would. So the alternative is coat everything in gold.
Not entirely, this is a very clever bit of chemistry that is a very high e paint. It absorbs in the IR range incredibly well. It's the opposite of low-e.

Which also means that it's an incredibly good emitter in the IR range. So good it emits more heat than it absorbs. Add in that it is also a good reflector in the visible spectrum it emits more heat than it absorbs via light even in direct sunshine.

So if this was used on a commercial roof then it would be cooling the roof, even when the sun is shining, which is very useful in hot places that need Aircon all the time.

Interestingly it would make reasonably good radiator paint. More IR emissions.
 
Although I seem to recall that if you paint yourself all over your supposed to leave a little patch - between 2 and 3 inches would probably do it.
Sorry, that's the Goldfinger myth! ;)
 
I think it makes you sweaty without the patch. I wonder if Shirley got a bit sweaty, or if they left a patch? The painter would know but they couldn't get any sense out of him for several weeks after the job.
 
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