Researchers say they have developed “the world’s lightest paint”. While many studies continue to strive for brighter and more reflective colours, this paint is inspired by nature for its incredible lightness and only needs a fraction of the normal amount of paint to paint the same area.
The new dye does not create color in the traditional way in the sense of using artificial pigments, and instead uses a mechanism where changing molecular structures similar to those in butterflies produce a striking array of colours.
“The range of colors and tones in the natural world is impressive, from colorful flowers, birds and butterflies to fish and underwater creatures such as cephalopods,” University of Central Florida researcher Debashis Chanda said in a statement. “Structural color is the entire geometric arrangement of typically two colorless materials. It works as the primary color rendering mechanism in several extremely vibrant species where it produces colors. In man-made pigments, on the other hand, new molecules are needed for each existing color.”
Conventional paints use organic pigments or inorganic pigments, which have distinct strengths and weaknesses. These artificial pigments are produced in bulk and prices can vary, but metal oxides are typically used to create different colors and hues. The pigment is then mixed with solvents, binders and resin to form a paint. One disadvantage of this system is that creating a new color becomes a rather laborious process, as each color requires a different material.
What’s the difference with the new “light paint”?
Instead of this method, the researchers produced a new plasmonic dye by examining how dazzling colors are created in nature without the use of pigments. This paint uses colorless aluminum and aluminum oxide instead of pigment, and the color is revealed by the geometrical structures of the material, the light interacting with each structure differently. These structured flakes are then added to the rest of the paint materials to create a finished product.
The process is more environmentally friendly because it removes artificial pigments, the researchers say. Also, because plasmonic materials reflect the entire infrared spectrum, they stay much cooler than standard paints and keep surfaces cooler. In addition, while the pigments are damaged by sunlight, this new paint retains its shine for longer.
Using 1.3 kilos of paint instead of 454 kilos
But perhaps the most interesting advantage of this paint is that, unlike conventional paints, which are recommended to be around 9 milliliters thick, the plasmonic paint only needs a 150 nanometer thick layer to reach full color.
The fact that the layer is so thin means that much less paint is needed to paint an entire object. For example, 454 kilograms of conventional paint would be required to completely cover a Boeing 747, while only 1.3 kilograms of this paint would be sufficient.
Unfortunately, as with all emerging technologies, paint is currently very expensive to manufacture. But the researchers plan to change that, and say it will become cheaper once it’s produced on a large scale like conventional paints.
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