Ultra-white ceramic cools buildings with record-high 99.6% reflectivity::undefined
You know what also cools houses down super efficiently?
Trees
You know what cools roofs and generates electricity? Magic!
Another trick: bifacial panels oriented to pick up the reflected light from highly reflective roofs
What about Ultra white ceramic trees?
True though this is still practical for folks who live in deserts and other treeless places
They also dampen noise
but trees look gross
NightAHawkinLight on youtube has been working on something similar. same kind of snow-like nanostructure to reflect light away, but with the added benefit of a paint that emits light in a wavelength that travels through the atmosphere without interacting with any of it.
so if you point a painted tile at the sky it will actually cool below ambient temperature, it’s pretty wild https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3bJnKmeNJY
Probably illegal here because of the high reflective value. Depending on the sun’s position, it could dazzle and blind people, e.g. people driving cars or riding bikes. I know that for this reason, shiny metal roofs are not allowed.
There is a difference between mirror like reflection and diffuse reflection. Mirror reflection is what you get with metal roofs which beam the sun directly to a target resulting in one spot being blinded. Diffuse reflection will spread it around, resulting in more light all around which is what we can handle as humans.
Can mostly handle. Snow blindness is a thing, and that’s all diffuse reflection too, not specular. But it’s unlikely a roof would be such a problem.
The reason for snow blindness is the fact the snow fills such a high portion of the visual field.
Yeah, hence it’s unlikely a roof would fill it to the same extent and wouldn’t be a problem.
It’s not visibly reflective. Yes, it’s white, but it’s cool to the touch because the majority of the energy is radiated out into space via non-visible wavelengths. Someone has already posted a great YouTube video from Night Hawk In Light in a comment where he explains how this tech works and makes his own paint!
I have aluminium foil covering my windows in summer and that doesn’t blind anyone by far, even in full sunlight.
Not everything reflecting is a mirror.
Would we ever be able to use a material like this to reflect a significant enough portion of the light falling on Earth to reduce the total heat imparted by sunlight in a meaningful way? Could we use this as defacto ice caps to perhaps reduce global temperatures in any real way?
Probably yeah, but more likely it would have to be atmospheric and not surface based. When Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991 it was estimated that the global temp dropped about 0.5 degrees C over the ensuing year due to the ash cloud blocking the sun
The only feasible plan we have for increasing the albedo of the planet overall is atmospheric engineering. Basically you can make a reflective cloud that’s millions of square miles in area, many orders of magnitude more cheaply than any other kind of structure.
Imperial March begins to play
My thoughts exactly at first glance! At least, now we know why some people think storm troopers are so cool.
Next trick: make it into a paint or spray-on treatment.
Oh, great idea! A nanoparticle ceramic aluminum oxide aerosol? What could possibly go wrong? 🤣
lol, it doesn’t have to be aerosolized in order for it to be sprayed. It can come out of a spray hose nozzle and be appropriately viscous. Workers can wear PPD.
You’re missing the point, and even at that: this reply is insanely short-sighted. Aerosolized or atomized, is still fucking airborne nanoparticle ceramic aluminum oxide. 🙄
I didn’t miss the point. You’re not understanding what I’m describing in a sufficiently contained substance that leaves its container and reaches its target surface with practically zero contamination of the local area. With a sufficiently viscous base liquid, it would be fine.
You’ve clearly never worked in any professional (let alone commercial) capacity with the medium(s) you’re championing, and the drive-by downvotes are whingy at best. Reddit will be the frog-boiling death of this platform. 🤦🏼♂️
I see that, rather than make you point with logic and facts, you’d rather just make petty and childish insults while complaining about downvotes. And you think it’s me bringing the bad Reddit influence?
Ah, yes, the ol’ Republican switcheroo. My argument is clear, concise, and factually-based, whereas yours is bluster and conjecture, yet you project your failings onto me in defense?
How typical. Stay in school, kiddo.
Maybe a paint that you put on with a hairy stick brush would be better?
Is this what they meant about a “bright future ahead of us”?
Why ceramic and not just paint?
The article addresses that. It is because ceramics are durable while paints and coatings are not.
Seems like the effort involved in putting down paint would outweigh the durability. Perhaps they’re thinking about robots to place the tiles though, like on Starship?
Roof tiles. They want to make these into roof tiles. There is a big picture in the article and they even talk about roof tiles. Did no one read the article?
Maybe ceramics were considered more sustainable?
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It looks like this reflects and scatters the light, rather than reflects and focuses it. Otherwise it would look like a mirror, not a ceramic.
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If the top of my head
- it cools your house in the winter, too
- It’s probably annoyingly bright if you can see the roof from ground level
- likely to degrade over time necessitating replacing tiles to maintain the effect
- Doesn’t work as well if you’ve got solar panels or trees obstructing it
- other stuff, probably
Ceramic is brittle. Ever heard of hail?
Just a video on how to make high-reflective paint.
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