What if instead of spending vast amounts of electricity to keep our buildings cool from the inside, we just bounced the heat where it came from? Allow us to explain. Aaswath Raman, a researcher at Stanford University, is working on building a material that is ultra-reflective to the sun’s rays and can bounce significant amounts of heat away from buildings and beyond the atmosphere. The material is able to send the infrared radiation at a particular frequency so that it leaves our atmosphere while reflecting 97% of sunlight, stopping buildings from heating up in the first place. Essentially, this material could be set upon a rooftop like a solar panel to keep buildings cool and help reduce the need for air conditioning, which accounts for 15% of all primary U.S. electricity demand.
This incredible building material reflects heat back into space, keeping you cool
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