Whatever happened to ... ?

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Whatever happened to color-changing roof tiles that absorb heat in winter and reflect it in summer? (phys.org)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The article is from 2009. It presents new roof tiles that become black in winter in order absorb heat from the sun, and white in summer to reflect it. I still can't buy these as far as I'm aware. What happened to that? They do write

Savings from the black state in winter have yet to be quantified.

So maybe it turned out that it wasn't worth it compared to tiles that are white year round?

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago

"the cost and durability has been a serious issue."

That's probably where the idea died.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Maybe this question didn't have the right answer:

The biggest remaining question is over durability, and answering it will require spending some time to do accelerated testing by running the material through repeated hot-cold cycles.