In as little as five years, manufacturers could be selling paint that helps keep a building cool in warm weather and warm in cold weather thanks to the way chains of liquid crystals react to temperature, according to a CNN report.
In what’s known as a thermochromic response, chains of liquid crystals react to ambient temperature. By adding these crystals to pigment, Joe Doucet of Katonah, New York, created a temperature-sensitive paint that could play a role in lowering building energy costs, especially if climate change results in increasing temperature extremes.
“There is no single solution to climate change,” said Doucet, a designer and inventor. “It’s a series of steps and small actions. But this could be a meaningful one.”
It’s possible manufacturers could have a commercial product available in five to 10 years, depending on how people react to the paint and what the eco-investing climate looks like over the next few years, Doucet told CNN.
Doucet has filed for patent protection of his technology and is looking for a paint or chemical company to partner with him. Given the Trump administration’s policy shift away from sustainability as a goal, he told CNN, he doesn’t want to pursue venture capital to commercialize his paint pigment as a solo entrepreneur.
“The … change in how investors respond to green projects has made him reluctant to raise venture capital and go at it alone,” the CNN report said.
Mood ring fascination
Doucet became interested in temperature-sensitive paint when he wondered whether exterior paint could play a role in indoor air temperatures, he told CNN.
When he experimented with 3D-printed scale models of his house, which he painted different colors, he saw that paint colors could change indoor temperature significantly.
“In winter the inside temperature of the black model was on average 7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the white one,” the report said. “In summer, the white model house was 12 degrees Fahrenheit cooler.”
Since it’s not feasible to change the exterior paint to correspond to the season, he wondered whether the paint itself could change. The idea seemed possible because of what he remembered from having a mood ring when he was a kid.
“I knew, even as a 7-year-old, that (the ring’s changing color) had nothing to do with my mood,” he told CNN. “There was some type of chemistry at play.”
That led him to experiment with the liquid crystals that cause the stones in mood rings to change with the temperature.
“The result was a substance that could change color by absorbing ultra-violet light (which produces heat) above a certain temperature,” the report said.
What comes next could depend on what happens on the financial side of Doucet’s experiment, according to the article.
