‘Sun shield’ to save Great Barrier Reef?

A novel ‘sun shield’ made from an ultrathin surface film may help protect the Great Barrier Reef from the impacts of coral bleaching, scientists said.

“The ‘sun shield’ is 50,000 times thinner than a human hair and completely biodegradable, containing the same ingredient corals use to make their hard skeletons — calcium carbonate,” said Anna Marsden, managing director at Great Barrier Reef Foundation. “It’s designed to sit on the surface of the water above the corals, rather than directly on the corals, to provide an effective barrier against the sun,” she said.

While it is still early days, and the trials have been on a small scale, the testing shows the film reduced light by up to 30%, researchers said.


Scientists tested the effectiveness of the one molecule thick film on seven different coral species in simulated coral bleaching event conditions at the Australian Institute of Marine Science.