Scientists in Hong Kong have demonstrated a new ultra-white ceramic material that can drastically cool buildings by reflecting sunlight and heat at record highs. The beetle-inspired material gets its ability from its nanostructure, stays tough to the elements and should be relatively easy to scale…

Ultra-white ceramic cools buildings with record-high 99.6% reflectivity::undefined

  • schmidtster@lemmy.worldEnglish
    41·
    10 months ago

    So there’s gotta be a downside to reflecting all this heat though?

    I know windows sometimes can focus and reflect the sun setting your neighbours house on fire, birds aren’t going to affected, bugs?

    • Pennomi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      131·
      10 months ago

      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.

      • schmidtster@lemmy.worldEnglish
        25·
        10 months ago

        That would only matter for something that it can focus on, it’s still reflecting. All the heat and at scale it’s not tested.

        Adding more heat and heat currents into the atmosphere, cannot be a good thing long term.

    • doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      11·
      10 months ago

      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