Posted on 06/22/2026 12:00:57 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Carbon nanotubes, essentially sheets of carbon atoms rolled into microscopic tubes, are exceptional light absorbers. The problem is that they are notoriously difficult to keep evenly distributed in a liquid coating mixture; they tend to clump, separate, and settle over time. To solve this, the team used a high-energy milling process to grind the carbon black and carbon nanotubes together in water along with dispersing agents. An accelerated stability test put the mixture through centrifuge forces more than 2,000 times the pull of gravity over seven hours, with only minimal separation, a strong indicator of shelf-stable industrial viability.
Because carbon black and carbon nanotubes share a chemical property that causes them to attract each other, the carbon black particles lined up along the nanotubes like beads strung on a wire rather than mixing randomly. Researchers describe this as a “connecting-the-dots” structure.
This arrangement creates a tiny, irregular surface texture on the coating, a landscape of microscopic peaks and valleys. When light hits this surface, it bounces around inside those valleys rather than reflecting back out, getting absorbed repeatedly, similar to soundproofing foam in a studio. Researchers call this “structural absorption,” and it’s the key mechanism that pushes the coating past the limits of conventional carbon black paint.
To measure how black a coating actually is, the automotive industry uses two numerical scales, “jetness” and “blackness,” where higher numbers mean a darker, more visually intense color. Standard carbon black coatings have essentially maxed out what’s achievable with that approach alone. The new coating posted meaningfully higher scores on both scales than the conventional formula tested alongside it...
Average reflectance across the visible light spectrum came in at approximately 0.08%. For context, Vantablack reflects about 0.04% of light, while common carbon-based coating materials typically reflect 1.5% to 4%.
(Excerpt) Read more at studyfinds.com ...
A car that can’t be seen. Interesting thought.
4000lb at 60 mph in camouflage. What could go wrong?
I’ve been playing senior softball for about 18 years. About 10 years ago, on what may have been the hottest day of the summer at about 95 degrees, my manager pulled out new jerseys for us. THEY WERE BLACK!......
No doubt Jimmy Kimmel & Ted Danson are interested in this blacker-than-black.
I tend to own cars until the wheels fall off, and black doesn’t hold up well long-term.
The more energy it absorbs, the more it oxidizes in my experience...
Car paint is so sad today-
Grey and more gray.
what happened to Regal Turquoise, Coral Sand, Sea Mist Green, Sunland Beige, and Matador Red ????
Plum Crazy Purple, Hemi Orange…..
Had on black cars I’ll never have another black car are at least 20 degrees hotter then light colored cars show dirt more get washed more thus will rust faster.
Didn't people contend this same effect was happening in people who got the COVID vaccine, except whole machines/UFOs assembled in you?
It was a ship of classic, simple design, like a flattened salmon, twenty yards long, very clean, very sleek. There was just one remarkable thing about it.
It’s so... black!” said Ford Prefect, “you can hardly make out its shape... light just seems to fall into it!”
...
The blackness of it was so extreme that it was almost impossible to tell how close you were standing to it.”
PPG brand code 9000 is straight black toner. Black toners tend to shift brown when let down. If you want a truer black, use PPG brand code 9835, GM paint code WA8555, which incorporates some dark blue to keep the brown shift to a minimum.
That may vary with different manufacturers of paint. I’ve only dealt heavily with PPG and Sherwin-Williams, but it was true with both.
I've noticed that too, grey homes and grey or black drive-ins like McDonald's and Taco Bell. Really depressing looking.
I've witnessed company employees working outdoors in the heat of summer in black company shirts and all I could think was that those employees work for morons who let other morons on the marketing team in the corporate offices make such decisions, and that those employees need to find new jobs.
It's right out of Dilbert.
VantaBlack is cool, but expensive and is garbage in a paint for automotive use.
MIT actually came up with something they called “blackest black” that is based on the same carbon-nanotube idea... but 10X “blacker” than VantaBlack.
I bought a high dollar camouflage hunting suit and it’s in my closet. Now i can’t find it. I know it’s in there . . . somewhere.
“ my manager pulled out new jerseys for us. THEY WERE BLACK!..”
And they were probably polyester. Nothing feels hotter than polyester clothing. Cotton, 100% cotton is the coolest fabric ever.
A polyester or poly blend is like wearing a sauna suit. I have to tell young people to buy cotton for working/playing in the heat. They are clueless, having never been taught this simple fact.
“What is the deal with all the greyscale paint jobs? Some people around here are even painting their houses like that.”
Many people are essentially sheep who wanna copy other sheep.
George Costanza already knew that.
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