according to a recent feature from futurism, solcold, a company based in herzliya, israel, has developed a special coating for the roof of a building that cools in sunlight and could potentially save homeowners and business owners on energy costs associated with air conditioning.
the coating will cool buildings in the sun. (wikimedia commons)
the coating works with the principle of laser cooling, but applied to the sun’s spectrum. the coating absorbs heat from the building and emits it as light. the coating could provide continuous cooling.
“this paint can actively cool, rather than just reducing the heat absorbed by roads and buildings,” the article continued. “simulations show the top floors of buildings coated with the pain cooled by up to 10°c, compared to buildings without the coating.”
it added, “the paint also has the potential to be used on space equipment, where it could ward off heating caused by the lack of air in space, as well as to disperse heat away from objects. right now, reflective fabrics and heat exchangers do the job, but the coating could be an easy, practical solution for future space equipment.”
according to the solcold website, the stronger the sun, the cooler that the coating gets. it uses an active cooling paint layer and a nano-filter paint layer that the company insists requires no implementation and no maintenance.
solcold has set a timeline for test runs on buildings by 2019 and large-scale production by 2021.
learn more about laser cooling principles in the video below:
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