Blacker Than Black

An anonymous reader writes "British scientists at the National Physical Laboratory in London have invented the darkest material on Earth. 'It could revolutionise optical instruments because it reflects 10 to 20 times less light than the black paint currently used to reduce unwanted reflections. The key to the nickel and phosphorous coating's blackness is that its surface is pitted with microscopic craters.' Wonder how effective it would be as a solar heating surface ?"

Comments

Re:Wonderment

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonder how effective it would be as a solar heating surface ?

It wouldn't make much difference, because changing from absorbing 97.5% of the sunlight to 99.65% isn't going to change the economics of your solar collector much.

However if you are building a telescope and you want to reduce the stray reflections, going from reflecting 2.5% to reflecting 0.35% is a huge improvement

"Wonder how effective it would be . . .

[kfg]

as a solar heating surface ?"

Ummmmm, much more than black paint?

I don't mean to be snide or anything ( for a change), but you really couldn't figure that out for yourself in about 1/10 of a second?

Not that it'll make much difference in a world that still puts black asphalt products on their roofs (which does everything wrong, being hot in summer and cold in winter) instead of polished aluminum.

In order to make good use of solar radiation one must first learn to use it *properly,* no matter how efficient any particular material is. Otherwise that efficiency just goes to waste.

I recommend a perusal of Rex Robert's classic work "Your Engineered House" for an explaination of how understanding basic thermodynamics can be applied simply and cheaply, with off the the shelf non-propriatary building materials, to a house with remarkable effect.

Just as in software no one makes gobs of money promoting nonpropriatary solutions, even though those solutions may not only be cheaper, but *better.* The whole Open/Propriatary thingummy goes far deeper than the IT industry. It is pervasive in every walk of life.

It's up to you to ignore the advertising material and edumicate yourself I'm afraid.

KFG

Re:What's blacker than black...

[Spock the Baptist]

Humm....

It's obvious that it's highly non-reflective in the visible portion of the spectrum, the question is how "black" is it in other spectrum regimes. Is it equally black in the IR, and/or UV?

Also, remember that a good absorber is a good emitter.