Solar Paint: How about Painting on that Energy Source?

To get power in our homes most of us either use power from the Electric Board with wires running from them to us. Others use electric generators, and the renewable guys have solar panels installed.

But the future is about to get more interesting as there is unlimited power to be gotten when you give your house that deserved fresh coat of paint. Sounds almost like science fiction right? Yes, I do think so too.

But some researchers from RMIT University of Australia Professor Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh and Dr Torben Daeneke wants to turn this fantasy into reality.

In the quest for tomorrow's renewable source, every means are exploited. Paints, often associated with health issues due to its volatile organic compounds (VOC)which are often harmful in high levels now has a bigger role to play in this quest.

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How it works

The material for the paint is synthetic molybdenum-sulphide. This material behaves like a semiconductor and forces the water molecules to split into hydrogen and oxygen.

This synthetic molybdenum-sulphide behaves like silica gel (those whitish balls found in new shoes, electronics etc that keep stuff dry). The mixture of it with titanium oxide (the white substance that is one of the constituents of paint) creates hydrogen fuel from solar energy and moist air.

“Our new development has a big range of advantages,” he said. “There’s no need for clean or filtered water to feed the system. Any place that has water vapour in the air, even remote areas far from water, can produce fuel.” ^Source

^{A diagram of the RMIT-developed solar paint. (Credit: RMIT)}

This technology could function just ok in remote areas far from water.

And because it’s effectively just a white paint, you could put it on your house or fence to create another kind of clean energy with a little humidity and sunlight. ^Source

This basically makes the wall painted with this paint an energy generator. The hydrogen fuel produced could be used in either fuel cells or in the combustion engine.

The technology is expected to take another five years before the final product is ready for the market at an expected cheap price.

The researchers have high hopes that when it goes mainstream that it would shift the fossil-fuel economy to that of hydrogen fuel (some cars and buses are already hydrogen-fuel powered) as it is more efficient and cleaner alternative.

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