Experimental UV-Reflecting Paint Could Keep Your Car Cool All Summer

[RaysWay]

Experimental UV-Reflecting Paint Could Keep Your Car Cool All Summer

Johns Hopkins scientists invent a UV-reflecting paint that keeps surfaces cool and resists corrosion for a century.

Your car and home could stay cooler in summer thanks to a new paint created by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. The paint uses glass to create a more reflective surface coating, as well as to protect your paint job from harsh ultraviolet rays that normally corrode it.

The paint is made of silica and potassium silicate, and dries within hours to a tough, durable surface coating. Essentially, the chemistry makes the UV rays bounce right off, ensuring that the surface is not absorbing the solar radiation, which keeps it cool to the touch.

The uses are endless, from car paint to metal roofs to ships to bleachers at a ball game. APL's Jason J. Benkoski developed the paint with naval ships in mind, but it should work on any metal surface. It sprays on as an aerosol, and the coating can last up to a century. Benkoski also said in an American Chemical Society press release that he wants to use it on playground equipment. Anyone who has been a child (approximately 100 percent of people) knows it would be a great thing to use a slide in summer without getting scorched.



source: UV-Reflecting Paint Could Keep Your Car Cool All Summer

 

[Setec Astronomy]

I guess there's always two sides to this..."Your car and home could stay cooler in summer..." which might be great in Arizona, but I'm sure once you get far enough north, the loss of winter solar heat gain isn't going to be appreciated.

Anyway, no one will make that paint, what paint company is going to make paint that lasts 100 years? Even the military is going to say they don't keep their stuff that long. My parents told me that when they first came out with nylon stockings during WWII, (when they were using silk for parachutes...I guess that was before they figured out to make parachutes from nylon...or maybe it was because silk came from Japan, or the Japanese sphere of influence at the time...or maybe I should have looked that part up before posting), they were indestructible. But then the stocking companies realized that if nylon stockings weren't as flimsy as silk stockings, they would be out of business in short order, so they invented planned obsolescence by making nylon stockings easy to get runs in. Or maybe someone else invented planned obsolescence, and the stocking companies copied it just like a long throw polisher...I guess I should have looked that part up, too...

Anyway, that sounds like cool paint (um...no pun intended), but it's probably gonna get locked away with the 150 mpg carburetors from the 70's.

 

[davidc]

The B52 is still flying. The way the military spending is going it may make 100 years.

Dave

 

[Setec Astronomy]

The B52 is still flying. The way the military spending is going it may make 100 years.

Eh, the B-52's they are still flying are the last ones they bought, so they are only a little over 50 years old, I highly doubt they will make it to 100 years. Military spending is still really pretty high, back in 2012 it was still almost as high as the Reagan years in constant dollars, it's just they're not using the money to buy bombers (although there are new bombers on the horizon, but 15 years out), they are building server farms with it, etc.

 

[rlmccarty2000]

In the 1990's I was in some conferences where they were just trying to figure out what color/type paint to use on shipping containers in order to keep them coolest while in transit or outdoor storage. The military started painting their shipping containers roofs white for optimum heat reflectivity. The military stores massive amounts of food and equipment on and off shore all over the world. It is amazing the amount of equipment that heat destroys. This technology could possibly save the U.S. Government big bucks.