Paint

It's never a good thing when harmful bacteria are present on surfaces in hospitals, as they can cause life-threatening infections in patients. A new paint could help keep that from happening, by quickly killing any microbes that land on it.

It can be hard, keeping a spray paint can at that Goldilocks not-too-close/not-too-far distance from the surface being painted. The Laser Focus Sprayer is made to take the guesswork out of doing so, by putting a dual-laser sighting system on any can.

Mercedes-Benz has unveiled a list of research programs and future technologies it's working on – including a "new kind of solar paint" it says could generate enough energy for up to 20,000 km (12,427 miles) of driving per year under ideal conditions.

Suppose you want to change the color of your apartment's walls, but you don't want to bother repainting them back to their original color before you move out. That's where Unpaint comes in, as it's a paint that can simply be peeled off as needed.

Nissan has demonstrated a new automotive paint that can drastically cool a vehicle parked in direct sunshine. Tests have shown that treated cars stay up to 21.6 °F (12 °C) cooler than untreated cars parked side by side.

Researchers have created a paint containing living cyanobacteria that produces oxygen and can capture carbon dioxide. The bacteria’s ability to withstand extreme environments means the paint could even be used in outer space.

Heating and cooling account for huge portions of our energy consumption. Now scientists at Stanford have created a new type of paint that passively blocks heat from entering or escaping, and can be made in a range of colors.

Traditional paint gets it color from synthetic pigments, which fade over time and aren't very eco-friendly. There may soon be a better alternative, though, in the form of a paint which incorporates color-producing nanostructures.

Last year, engineers at Purdue University used their expertise in materials science to produce the world’s whitest paint, and have now made some tweaks to the recipe and produced a version that is thinner and lighter.

Engineers at Purdue University have been at the cutting edge of reflective paint research for some time, and have just produced the whitest paint ever created, which they say reflects 98.1 percent of sunlight and could be used to keep buildings cool.

Researchers have developed a new white paint that can reflect over 95 percent of sunlight, which can cool the surface even lower than the ambient temperature. Painted on a building, the new paint could help cut cooling costs and energy use.

When most people picture swarms of collaborating robots, they generally think of applications such as search and rescue operations. A new study, however, suggests that such swarms could also be used to help artists put paint to canvas.