I painted my home with stuff from a company that won the 2003 award from NASA for the best spin-off product for that year. Add some to paint and it keeps the house warm in winter and cool in summer. Wonder if there’s a connection?
http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/spinoff2003/er_4.html;painter
Painting the interior or the exterior of a house can be quite an arduous task, but few realize that adding a fresh splash of color to the walls and siding of their homes can lead to reduced energy consumption and substantial savings on utility bills. Hy-Tech Thermal Solutions, LLC, of Melbourne, Florida, is producing a very complex blend of ceramic vacuum-filled refractory products designed to minimize the path of hot air transfer through ceilings, walls, and roofs. The insulating ceramic technology blocks the transfer of heat outward when applied to paint on interior walls and ceilings, and prevents the transfer of heat inward when used to paint exterior walls and roofs, effectively providing year-round comfort in the home.
As a manufacturer and marketer of thermal solutions for residential, commercial, and industrial applications, Hy-Tech Thermal Solutions attributes its success to the high performance insulating ceramic microsphere originally developed from NASA thermal research at Ames Research Center. Shaped like a hollow ball so small that it looks as if it is a single grain of flour to the naked eye (slightly thicker than a human hair), the microsphere is noncombustible and fairly chemical-resistant, and has a wall thickness about 1/10 of the sphere diameter, a compressive strength of about 4,000 pounds per square inch, and a softening point of about 1,800 ºC.
Hy-Tech Thermal Solutions improved upon these properties by removing all of the gas inside and creating a vacuum. In effect, a “mini thermos bottle” is produced, acting as a barrier to heat by reflecting it away from the protected surface. When these microspheres are combined with other materials, they enhance the thermal resistance of those materials.
In bulk, the tiny ceramic “beads” have the appearance of a fine talcum powder. Their inert, nontoxic properties allow them to mix easily into any type of paint, coating, adhesive, masonry, or drywall finish. Additionally, their roundness causes them to behave like ball bearings, rolling upon each other, and letting the coatings flow smoothly. When applied like paint to a wall or roof, the microsphere coating shrinks down tight and creates a dense film of the vacuum cells. The resulting ceramic layer improves fire resistance, protects from ultraviolet rays, repels insects such as termites, and shields from the destructive forces of nature.