Whitest paint

Wayland Smith

Wayland Smith

Active member
I wonder how "new" that really is?
It sounds rather like the "anti-flash white" that the V bombers were painted with in their early days.  :-\
 
AR

AR

Well-known member
nothing new about white barytes paint, even in the 18th century it was being used as an alternative to white lead!
 
ttxela2

ttxela2

Active member
Back in the 90's I worked for a building company that was refurbishing some early historic observatories for Cambridge University. We had to use an especially pure white paint for the domes to ensure that the full spectrum of light was reflected to avoid tinting the telescope images.

As an aside I got an angry call from our MD after he visited site and I had to rush out to meet him. He was looking at the freshly erected scaffold which only gave access to a small section of the dome and demanded to know how on earth the painters were going to do the rest of it. Red faces all round when I showed him the handle inside where you could rotate it.......
 
royfellows

royfellows

Well-known member
It does not actually have to have any advantage, the sell is in the image. Like a lot of 'eco' products, more expensive than the usual, people will buy and pay more for the virtue signaling - feel good factor. Like in the old days putting a fiver on the church collection plate, and making sure they be seen to do it.
 
ttxela2

ttxela2

Active member
royfellows said:
It does not actually have to have any advantage, the sell is in the image. Like a lot of 'eco' products, more expensive than the usual, people will buy and pay more for the virtue signaling - feel good factor. Like in the old days putting a fiver on the church collection plate, and making sure they be seen to do it.
Click to expand...

I guess the theory is sound and if I was setting out to paint a buildings roof I might be tempted to specify something that would be solar reflective.

However I suspect it falls into the 'tinkering around the edges' category. In my experience much of the UK commercial building stock is woefully inefficient in terms of insulation, HVAC and controls, much of it is on relatively short term leases so there is little incentive for tenants to upgrade anything as they won't see the payback, landlords get tenants to ready the building for the next tenant through the dilapidations process where tenants only objective is to limit costs. Perhaps a lot of this paint will get splashed around so that 'eco' credentials can be included in glossy brochures much like energy efficient lighting. Meanwhile in the plantroom an ancient gas boiler is thundering away set to run 24/7 cos the control panel stopped working years ago, someone lost the manual and the original installers went bust in the 80's.
 
pwhole

pwhole

Well-known member
I got the impression that the main markets will be in countries hot enough to use air-con systems routinely, so it's probably a moot point here as it isn't sunny enough to warrant the effort. When I still did darkroom photography, I always used 'baryta' paper as it had very bright highlights and very rich blacks - generally AGFA Record Rapid, toned with selenium - lovely. A minerals-expert friend of mine told me about work he was doing in South Africa in the 1970s with titanium-rich sands - the site is now a Rio Tinto mine, and it seems this is where much of the titanium dioxide comes from:

https://www.riotinto.com/operations/south-africa/richards-bay-minerals
 
ChrisJC

ChrisJC

Well-known member
ttxela2 said:
However I suspect it falls into the 'tinkering around the edges' category.
Click to expand...

Sadly you are right I suspect. Like most of this stuff, theoretically it could help a little bit.

But nothing like as much as a 50% reduction in human population would.

Chris.
 
Cantclimbtom

Cantclimbtom

Well-known member
aardgoose said:
If you mix this with the blackest paint available, do you get the greyest grey?
Click to expand...
You might be joking, but... Yes!
That'd make a grey that was consistently grey across all colours and so the greyest grey.
 
aardgoose

aardgoose

Member
https://culturehustle.com/products/black-3-0-the-worlds-blackest-black-acrylic-paint-150ml
Click to expand...

I was wondering when Anish Kapoor's name would crop up, with his rights grab on "Vanta Black"...He is probably after the white now too.

Talking of artists and unusual pigments, "Mummy Brown" was once a thing, made from ground up Egyptian mummies.
 
ttxela2

ttxela2

Active member
royfellows said:
It does not actually have to have any advantage, the sell is in the image. Like a lot of 'eco' products, more expensive than the usual, people will buy and pay more for the virtue signaling - feel good factor. Like in the old days putting a fiver on the church collection plate, and making sure they be seen to do it.
Click to expand...

This is true but the price has to be right - reassuringly expensive for paint but not so expensive it becomes a noticable expense. It'll look dramatically different once painted to how it did before and will make a great photo for the newsletter and webpage.

I spend a significant amount of time trying to do stuff to reduce our organisations impact - to be fair there is a genuine desire there to do this but it's way easier to get a budget for a donation to an environmental charity associated with a best nature photo competition (which attracts spectacular photos from around the world which employees have flown to in jet aircraft...) than it is to get a similar size budget to replace ageing plant with more energy efficient modern equipment, or improve controls etc. Mainly because one is great fun and gets everyone involved and the other is pretty dull to most people and happens in a room in the roofspace that only a handful of people ever visit.....
 
Grout1

Grout1

New member
But nothing like as much as a 50% reduction in human population would.

The flip of a coin is the neatest solution to halving our consumption problems in virtually every area of concern.
Heads you survive anybody?
 
LJR

LJR

Member
aardgoose said:
If you mix this with the blackest paint available, do you get the greyest grey?
Click to expand...

Yes but if you mix different quantities you can get 50 shades of Grey...
 
pwhole

pwhole

Well-known member
I got sent some photos (by John Hunter) of the ilmenite-rich heavy sand from Zululand that eventually became the titanium mine mentioned above.
 

Attachments

  • 100_zulu 763 ( edited).jpg
    100_zulu 763 ( edited).jpg
    490.5 KB · Views: 149
  • 100_zulu 761 (R).jpg
    100_zulu 761 (R).jpg
    724.3 KB · Views: 147
F

Fishes

New member
Barium sulphate is still commonly used as a pigment in some paint and other applications. Pigment grades go through chemical processing by reduction and later acid  precipitation which helps remove impurities and produces a product with very high surface area.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top