Nanobased coatings with improved NIR reflecting properties for building envelope materials: Development and natural aging effect measurement

A significant contribution to the reduction of the Urban Heat Island effect and cooling energy demand is given today by the so called cool materials for the building envelope with enhanced reflecting and emitting properties. The present study shows some preliminary results of the EU project COOL-Coverings aiming at developing innovative nanobased coatings with improved Near InfraRed reflecting capabilities. The key idea is to work on a nanoscale by tuning the crystal size and distribution of selected nanostructured oxides . Cool prototypes of brown colored ceramic tiles and green acrylic paints have been developed and compared to conventional ones showing an improvement in solar reflectance without any perceptual difference in color. The material characterization has been based on the measurement of spectral reflectance on a wide wavelength range (300-2200nm) using a UV/Vis/NIR spectrophotometer. In parallel with the development of nanostructured cool materials, natural aging tests on ceramic and painted concrete tiles have been performed with the goal of identifying the main aging factors affecting reflective properties. A significant drop of solar reflectance for paints has been noticed from the very beginning of the testing period while ceramic tiles have confirmed excellent resistance to weathering. However, both for paints and tiles the effect of soiling cannot be neglected and, if combined to weathering, it can lead to a solar reflectance reduction as high as 10%. This preliminary study will pave the way to a future development of dedicated accelerated aging procedures for cool materials