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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

A rainbow of layered paints could help buildings to keep their cool

A simple design allows heat-reflective paints to move beyond plain white.
Thermal camera picture of the monolayer and the bilayer. Bilayer (RIGHT) stays cooler under sun exposure.

A paint sample (right) atop a white underlayer stays cooler in the sunlight than a sample of the same paint on its own (left). Credit: Jyotirmoy Mandal

A layer of dark paint effectively reflects the Sun’s rays if it’s just the right thickness and has an undercoat of white paint — allowing coloured surfaces to be made cooler.

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Nature 581, 11 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01249-0

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