Engineers have created the whitest paint ever — a paint so white that building surfaces coated in it are 8 degrees cooler than the air on a sunny day. The innovation could reduce air conditioning demands and mitigate the effects of climate change, according to VICE Magazine.
The new paint, developed by a team at Purdue University, reflects 98.1% of sunlight. Researchers used barium sulfate, a powder that’s reflective across all wavelengths of sunlight, as pigment for the new paint — most white paints use titanium dioxide as pigment.