Ultrawhite Paint (with Barium Sulfate) - Periodic Table of Videos
Summary
TLDRThe script discusses an innovative paint that not only appears exceptionally white but also has cooling properties akin to air conditioning. Unlike traditional paints that absorb sunlight and heat up, this paint uses barium sulfate, a material that reflects nearly all sunlight wavelengths while allowing infrared heat to escape. This results in a surface that can be cooler than the surrounding air, a phenomenon known as radiative cooling. The paint's potential application on rooftops could provide an energy-efficient way to keep homes cool, reducing reliance on air conditioning and lowering CO2 emissions, making it a promising development in combating global warming.
Takeaways
- 🎨 The paper discusses a new type of paint that is exceptionally white and has cooling properties similar to air conditioning.
- 🌡️ The script explains the greenhouse effect, where sunlight in the form of short-wavelength light enters and is absorbed, causing the interior to heat up due to trapped long-wavelength heat radiation.
- 💧 The paint utilizes barium sulfate, a material that can be easily created by reacting barium chloride with dilute sulfuric acid, resulting in a precipitation of tiny, insoluble barium sulfate crystals.
- 🔬 Barium sulfate is used in varying particle sizes mixed with a binder to create the innovative white paint, which is different from traditional titanium dioxide-based paints.
- 🌞 Traditional white paints with titanium dioxide reflect visible light but absorb ultraviolet and infrared light, causing surfaces to warm up.
- 🌿 The new paint reflects nearly all wavelengths of sunlight, including ultraviolet and infrared, sending back the sun's energy and preventing surface warming.
- 👀 Barium sulfate is transparent to infrared light, allowing heat radiating from beneath the paint to escape into the atmosphere or space.
- 🏠 The paint enables radiative cooling, meaning surfaces coated with it can be cooler than the air outside, even in winter, suggesting a potential method for cooling buildings naturally.
- 🌍 The script suggests that painting house roofs with this paint could provide an energy-efficient way to keep homes cool without contributing to CO2 emissions.
- 🔬 The script also describes an experiment involving micron-scale particles of barium sulfate moving and aggregating in a solution, illustrating the material's properties.
Q & A
What is the main function of the new white paint mentioned in the script?
-The new white paint is designed to not only be very white but also to cool things down and act like air conditioning when it's hot outside.
How does a greenhouse work in terms of heat retention?
-A greenhouse works by allowing short-wavelength sunlight to pass through the glass and be absorbed by the plants inside. The plants then emit heat at a longer wavelength, which cannot escape through the glass, trapping the heat and making the inside very hot.
What is the key ingredient in the new white paint and how is it made?
-The key ingredient in the new paint is barium sulfate, which is made by dissolving barium chloride in water to create a colorless solution and then adding dilute sulfuric acid, causing barium sulfate crystals to precipitate out.
Why is barium sulfate effective in the new paint?
-Barium sulfate is effective because it is insoluble in water and can be mixed with a binder to create a paint that reflects nearly all wavelengths of sunlight, including ultraviolet and infrared light, which helps in cooling surfaces.
How does the new paint differ from traditional white paints that use titanium dioxide?
-Traditional white paints using titanium dioxide reflect visible light but absorb ultraviolet and infrared light, causing surfaces to warm up. The new paint with barium sulfate reflects all sunlight wavelengths and is transparent to infrared, allowing heat to radiate out.
What phenomenon allows the surface under the new paint to be cooler than the air outside?
-The phenomenon is called radiative cooling, which occurs because the surface under the paint can radiate heat into the atmosphere or space without receiving heat from the sunlight.
According to the script, what is one potential application of this new paint?
-One potential application is painting the roofs of houses white to provide an effective way of keeping the house cool without using energy, similar to air conditioning.
How does the new paint contribute to environmental sustainability?
-The new paint contributes to environmental sustainability by offering a cooling effect without the need for energy-consuming air conditioning, thereby reducing CO2 emissions and mitigating global warming.
What is the significance of using different size particles of barium sulfate in the paint?
-Using a mixture of different size particles of barium sulfate in the paint enhances its effectiveness in reflecting sunlight and allowing heat to radiate out, making it more efficient than titanium dioxide paint.
Can the new paint be applied in winter as well, and what would be its effect?
-Yes, the new paint can be applied in winter, and it can make the surface under the paint cooler than the paint itself, providing a consistent cooling effect regardless of the season.
How does the script describe the visual effect of the barium sulfate reaction?
-The script describes the visual effect as a 'snowstorm' of tiny barium sulfate crystals precipitating out, creating swirling clouds that are visually appealing.
Outlines
🌡️ Revolutionary White Paint for Radiative Cooling
This paragraph introduces an innovative white paint that not only appears exceptionally white but also has the unique ability to cool surfaces, functioning similarly to air conditioning. The explanation begins with a basic understanding of how a greenhouse operates, using sunlight and trapped heat to warm the interior. The new paint, however, operates in reverse, utilizing barium sulfate, a compound that can be easily created by mixing barium chloride and dilute sulfuric acid, resulting in a visually appealing precipitation of tiny crystals. Unlike traditional white paints that use titanium dioxide and absorb ultraviolet and infrared light, causing surfaces to heat up, this paint reflects nearly all sunlight wavelengths due to a mixture of differently sized barium sulfate particles in a binder. Crucially, barium sulfate is transparent to infrared light, allowing heat radiated from beneath the paint to escape into the atmosphere or space. This property enables the paint to achieve radiative cooling, potentially making surfaces cooler than the ambient air temperature. The paragraph suggests that applying this paint to rooftops could provide an energy-efficient method of cooling homes without contributing to CO2 emissions.
🔬 Micron-Scale Particles in Solution
In this paragraph, the focus shifts to the observation of individual micron-scale particles within a solution. These particles, which are approximately one micrometer in diameter, are visible moving across the field of view. They exhibit dynamic behavior, aggregating at the edge of the solution and eventually falling out of it. This observation likely relates to the properties of the paint's constituent particles, highlighting their ability to interact and form aggregates, which may contribute to the paint's unique cooling effect by influencing how they scatter and absorb light.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡White Paint
💡Greenhouse Effect
💡Barium Sulfate
💡Radiative Cooling
💡Titanium Dioxide (TiO2)
💡Infrared Radiation
💡Particle Size
💡Binder
💡Energy Efficiency
💡Global Warming
Highlights
A new type of very white paint has been developed that can cool surfaces like air conditioning.
The paint uses barium sulfate, a material that is easy to make and has unique properties.
Barium sulfate is created by mixing barium chloride with dilute sulfuric acid, resulting in a snowstorm of tiny crystals.
The paint is made by mixing different size particles of barium sulfate with a binder.
Traditional white paints use titanium dioxide, which reflects visible light but absorbs UV and infrared light, causing surfaces to heat up.
The new paint reflects nearly all wavelengths from sunlight, sending back the sun's energy.
Barium sulfate is transparent to infrared, allowing heat from underneath the paint to radiate out.
The paint enables radiative cooling, where surfaces can be cooler than the air outside, even in winter.
The paint could provide an effective way to keep houses cool without energy use, unlike air conditioning.
Painting house roofs white with this new paint could significantly reduce the need for air conditioning.
The paint could be a major advancement in creating cool environments without contributing to CO2 emissions.
The paint's effectiveness is due to the use of individual micron-scale particles of barium sulfate.
The paint's particles move and aggregate in solution, demonstrating their unique behavior.
The innovative paint has the potential to revolutionize cooling methods and reduce energy consumption.
The paint's properties could lead to more sustainable and environmentally friendly cooling solutions.
The study's findings have practical applications for reducing global warming and improving energy efficiency.
Transcripts
so i want to tell you about really quite
exciting paper about a new very white
paint not only is it very white
but it can actually cool things down
act a bit like air conditioning when
it's hot outside
before that let me just remind you how a
greenhouse works
and the greenhouse as you know has sun
light shining on it it gets warmer
inside
than it is outside and the way that it
works
is that the sunlight which is short
wavelength
light can go through the glass and it's
absorbed
by whatever is inside the greenhouse the
plants and so on
they get warm up because they've
absorbed the sunlight
and then they give out heat a much
longer wavelength and that heat
radiation cannot get out through the
glass
the heat is trapped inside and it gets
very hot
now this paint works in the exact
opposite way it uses
a material called barium sulphate
it's quite easy to make i asked neil to
make some for us
and you take a solution of barium
chloride
barium is the element two below
calcium in the periodic table so you
make
a solution dissolving the barium
chloride
in water and you get a colorless
solution
and then you add dilute sulfuric acid
and barium sulfate is
insoluble or almost insoluble in water
so you get a sort of snow storm
of tiny barium sulfate crystals
precipitating out and it looks really
beautiful
you see these swirling clouds brady
who's hard to impress wanted to see it
twice
[Music]
[Music]
so it is a really nice reaction it's
also
quite a good test for barium if you want
to
show that you've got a solution of
barium add a little sulfuric acid
down it comes however what has been done
in this very recent article is that they
have used
a mixture of different size particles of
barium sulfate
and mixed it in a binder so you can make
white paint
normally the white paints that you and i
use
uses titanium dioxide tio2
which reflects visible light
but absorbs ultraviolet light and also
absorbs
infrared light so if you have something
painted with
titanium dioxide it reflects the visible
light
but absorbs the uv in infrared so the
surface gets warm from the sun
this new paint reflects nearly
all the wavelengths from the sunlight so
all the energy of the sun is sent back
again
and because of all these different sized
particles
it's much more effective than titanium
dioxide paint
but and here's the exciting thing
barium sulfate is transparent in the
infrared
so the heat radiating out from whatever
is under the paint
can go through the barium sulfate paint
and radiate out into space or into the
atmosphere
so what is below is giving out heat
but it's not receiving any heat from the
sunlight so it can be
colder than the air outside
or the warmth from the sun
so you can get something that is
called radiative cooling and according
to this article
even in winter when it's really cold
the surface under the paint can be
cooler than the paint itself
and their suggestion is that if we all
painted
the roofs of our houses white
it would give us a really effective way
of keeping the house cool
without using any source of energy
as we would with air conditioning now
i'm not sure whether in this house you
could paint the roof
white but in many countries it would be
possible
and this could really be quite a big
advance in providing
a nice cool environment for us to live
without adding to the
co2 emissions that will contribute to
global warming
individual micron scale micron diameter
particles
and you can see that they're moving
across you can see them moving around in
the solution
and they're joining on here they're
aggregating at the edge they're falling
out of solution
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