Indian summers witness temperatures up to 48 degrees Celsius causing discomfort to travelers due to the heating of trucks, buses, and trains. The heatwaves minimize the efficiency of the cooling method to become a financial burden on transportation providers. To resolve this, 3M India’s R&D team has come up with 3M Scotchkote Polytech Exp RG700, a first-of-its-kind solution. This solar reflective coating decreases the heat inside any enclosure after its application on metallic and non-metallic surfaces.
3M Scotchkote Poly-Tech RG 700 got the recognition of an honorable mention for ‘World-Changing Day’ by Fast Company in the Energy category as part of the 2020 listing. The reason was a decrease in the temperature in Indian rail coaches by 15 percent. This has resulted in considerable improvement in non-AC coaches passenger comfort. After the application of this coating on the roof of air-conditioned coaches for air conditioners energy efficiency enhancement, the HVAC cost was reduced by 20 percent.
Dr. Mukesh Madhup, Manager- Technical, Product Development, Electrical Markets Division 3M India, said, “This innovation is a significant milestone in 3M India’s R&D effort. We are greatly satisfied with the impact this solution has had on the Indian rail coaches’ heat reduction so far. Our teams are now scaling up the production as this solution finds prevalent applications in the HVAC industry. We are also exploring the application of this solution across other countries such as Singapore, Germany, and China.”
3M’s Scotchkote Poly-Tech RG700 has been implemented in more than 100 rail coaches. The belief is that it has added to the vision of Indian Railways of energy conservation, passenger comfort, and sustainable procurement by more than 20 percent. Also, there is a considerable contribution to passenger comfort. The estimation is that if it is applied to more than 15,000 rail coaches in the rail network of India, the solution can cause a saving of 162 thousand megawatts of electricity, which has the result of a decrease in the amount of carbon dioxide by 132 thousand tons in a year. The potential saving is of approx. 15 million USD per year in energy expenses or a decrease of 17 percent.
The clear philosophy of 3M is to apply science consciously. The belief of the company is that science must be only science until it can improve the world
Since 2019, sustainability is the core of new products, 3M has a commitment that each new product entering the commercialization gateway must have a clearly stipulated and measurable impact for more good. 3M India R&D conducted 2.5 years of extensive research to develop the reflective coating product and is endorsed by manufacturing and product stewardship leaders. Many factors resulted in this innovation, which includes the HVAC industry’s quest for surface temperature reduction, the growing regulation to conserve energy, urban heat island formation, and the rising threat of global warming. The result is the overall improvement of the AC’s efficiency and protection of enclosures and surfaces from the heating caused by solar infra-red radiation.
The solution has diverse applications across outdoor enclosures, pipelines, LPG storage tanks, pavements, industrial shed roofing, chemical plants, cooling, refrigeration, telecommunication, metros, buses, two-wheeler covers, and automotive-vehicle exterior, and portable cabins.
For more details, visit https://www.3mindia.in/
