Blue - lonely, holy, hip,
irreverent blue. It was the first man-made pigment, and the last color word
developed across cultures. The color reminds us of the ocean, sky, calmness and
tranquility, one of the color mostly used by painters is now expanding! …drum
roll
A new BLUE pigment is discovered!
What?? What do you mean?? How?
Well...In 2009, as part of his lab
at Oregon State University, Subramanian - a professor of materials science -and
his students were mixing and grinding chemicals then heating them to over 2000
degree Fahrenheit to manufacture new
materials that could be used in electronics. That was when one grad student,
Andrew E. Smith, took a particular mix out of the furnace which had turned to a
surprising, bright blue color.
"You know what Louis Pasteur said?"
Subramanian asks. "Luck favors the alert mind."
Smith and Subramanian, as
it turns out, stumbled upon an undiscovered pigment of blue — the first new
blue in over 200 years.
"Color is a part of a spectrum, so you
can't discover a color," Subramanian says. "You can only discover a
material that is a particular color." That spectrum is red, orange, yellow,
green, blue, and violet — no indigo. A pigment is a material that absorbs
certain parts of the color spectrum and reflects others.
In this “complex inorganic
pigment” is called "YInMn blue" - named after its chemical makeup of
yttrium, indium and manganese oxides — and absorbs red and green wavelengths
and reflects blue wavelengths in such a way that it came off looking a very
bright blue.
“complex inorganic pigment” meaning it's not a
naturally occurring pigment, Rather, it derives from a mix of various metal
oxides — a metal element combined with oxygen.
The last new complex inorganic blue pigment to
be commercially manufactured was cobalt blue — a mix of cobalt and aluminum
oxides — in the early 19th century. Cobalt, however, can be toxic if ingested
in large quantities, and it doesn't reflect heat particularly well and also It
fades over time.
But this new blue is an
exceptional one, because it reflects heat more than cobalt blue, it's really
stable and it's a really great color. YInMn can endure oil, water and sunlight
better than other available blues.
I am excited and can’t wait
for the day that this pigment is made into a little watercolor tube so that I
can bring it home.
What do you think? would you buy the new color when it comes out?
