Airbrushing: A Novel Method for Preparation of High‐Emissivity Black Coating for Infrared Measurements
The article “Airbrushing: A Novel Method for Preparation of High‐Emissivity Black Coating for Infrared Measurements“, published in the journal Advanced Materials Interfaces (IF = 4.4), presents a new method for applying high-emissivity black coatings intended for infrared (IR) temperature measurements.
Researchers from the Laboratory for Refrigeration and District Energy (Process Engineering) collaborated on the study with colleagues from the Jožef Stefan Institute, the National Institute of Chemistry, the Colorado School of Mines, and the University of Barcelona.
Using a simple and cost-effective airbrush system, we developed a procedure for applying a homogeneous and thin black coating layer (minimum thickness of 3 µm), which can be deposited on various shapes and materials—including curved surfaces. The average emissivity of the coating is approximately 0.95 in the 0.5–2.5 µm spectral range, enabling high-precision IR temperature measurements even on surfaces with naturally low emissivity (e.g., metals).
The effectiveness of the method was demonstrated by direct IR temperature measurements of the magnetocaloric effect on a LaFeCoSi magnetocaloric material sample, where the results showed excellent agreement with the manufacturer’s technical data. The coating is fully removable with standard laboratory solvents, allowing temporary application without affecting the sample properties.
This new method combines the advantages of conventional painting and printing techniques and opens up possibilities for more precise thermal characterization of caloric materials and other samples where high emissivity is essential for IR measurements.
Figure: a) Photograph of the airbrush used in this work; b) Schematic representation of coating procedure; c) Average total coating thickness as a function of number of layers; d) Temperature profile of a coated magnetocaloric plate under a cycling applied magnetic field 0 – 1.1 T.