Air conditioning is one of those things that goes under appreciated until it stops working, or ceases to exist. My parents opted to have central air conditioning installed in our home a few years ago now, and prior to having central air in our house, we relied on window units.
They worked okay, but nothing compares to having central air.
As it turns out, however, air conditioning could become a thing of the past, thanks to some rather nifty roof material, says an article from The Good News Network.
“What if your home could stay cool all on its own—no electricity required?
“That’s the premise of Yi Zheng’s new invention. The associate professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at Northeastern University in Boston has created a sustainable material that can be used to make buildings or other objects able to keep cool without relying on conventional cooling systems.
“Zheng envisions this material, dubbed ‘cooling paper,’ covering the roofs of houses, warehouses, and office buildings.
“Not only does the light-colored material reflect hot solar rays away from the building, it also sucks heat out of the interior, too—heat that is emitted from electronics, cooking, and human bodies.
“Cooling paper is, in fact, made of paper, and the porous microstructure of the natural fibers inside absorbs the indoor warmth and re-emits it away from the building.
“The cooling paper isn’t just eco-friendly in its ability to reduce your energy footprint. It’s also recyclable. The material can be used, exposed to solar radiation, weather, and varying temperatures, then reduced to a pulp (again) and reformed without losing one iota of its cooling properties. Zheng has tried it. And the recycled cooling paper performed just as well as the original,” the article explains.
If this isn’t an example of incredible engineering, I’m not sure what is.
ontheedgeofeverything 