I always start my column with a question. So why break away with tradition now?Would you believe that walls can cool themselves when they get hot? (Actually that’s 2 questions at
beginning of this column!) Many of you, if not all of you will answer a simple and flat, ‘NO’. I would have said so too until I read it with my own eyes (I didn’t actually see these walls with my own eyes, no).
The BASF company announced in mid-year that it had managed to do
impossible. The experiments were held in Ludwigshafen, Germany.
Ok, I know you are all interested in reading how these walls in fact ‘work’ but it’s sort of complicated. Anyway I’ll try my best. Read on!
The walls are filled with plastic micro-marbles, which in turn are filled with paraffin wax. Now
wax will melt at a temperature higher than 24oC something. Melting, as you might know absorbs energy, which is in this case heat. The paraffin wax in
micro-marbles absorbs heat thus cooling their surroundings (they take all
heat away).