Yi Zheng, the Associate Professor at Northeastern University in Boston, has created a sustainable material that can be used to build houses or other objects and keep cool without depending on any conventional cooling systems.
Zheng envisioned this material, dubbed ‘cooling paper,’ covering the roofs of houses, warehouses, and office buildings. The light-coloured material reflects hot solar rays away from the building. It can also suck the heat out of the interior, heat emitted from electronics, cooking, and human bodies. The material can be exposed to solar radiation, different weather conditions, and varying temperatures. Results showed that the recycled cooling paper performed just as well as the original.
Zheng aims to reduce utility bills through his research and hopes that his work will help combat climate change. “The starting point is to reduce the use of carbon-based materials and also to reduce global warming,” Zheng says.
