A little background on 'PFG' first.
The nickname 'PFG' stands for 'Pigment Free Gray'. Anything added to a base to alter the color, is technically a pigment. Therefore Aluminum
is as pigment and is actually a known one. Nothing was 'discovered' or invented here, and as far as using aluminum for painting it certainly isn't new. The reason I called it Pigment Free was because it produced a gray without the use of conventional store tint colorants. No lamp black, or any other colors other than aluminum were used.
I was studying and researching screens and various ways they are made and to achieve a brighter image over a standard matte finish (whether it be gray or white) there are several methods typically employed. Glass beads are one way, pearls (mica, which is an interference method), non-interference methods (metals and other components that reflect, not refract), and the surface sheen (mostly a DIY method).
Glass beads are used for high gain screens and create a retro-reflective screen. What that means is the light hitting the screen is mostly reflected back to the source. Think of a traffic sign and your headlights. The sign looks bright and illuminated because the light is reflected back at the source, basically you. An angular reflective screen is like playing pool and doing a bank shot.
Mica is reflective, but also by nature refracts light. There are some commercial screens that use pearls, but not many and they are starting to become fewer. The problem is a color shifting caused by light being refracted. Each piece of mica acts as a tiny prism. Commercial screen companies use a very high grade of finely ground mica, but they also employ special methods to ensure uniform coverage over the entire screen as well as special construction methods to align the flakes in one direction.
Non-interference methods are the use of a material that is not translucent like mica, and therefore does not allow light to pass through, bending the light as it does and causing refraction. There are several commercial companies that use non-interference methods over interference methods.
Surface sheen. Perhaps the worse way to increase screen brightness because it also introduces hot spotting after a certain point.
I was very intrigued with the use of aluminum in screens. Aluminum is often used as a 'silver substitute' and has also been used at times for a second surface mirror, so the bright reflective properties had me curious.
While walking through Walmart I came across a general purpose water based paint. I had seen many oil based aluminum paints, but this was the first waterbased one I ran across. It was Black Jack 5168. I bought a gallon of it for $15.
The paint itself is very bright and highly reflective due to the aluminum. I mixed it with some Kilz2 expecting a bright silvery-white screen. Instead and to my surprise I got a very dark gray shade. Dark as far as screens go.
I mixed up ratios of 3:1 through 6:1. Ratios being 3,4, or 5 parts Kilz2 to 1 part of the aluminum paint. Interestingly, 3:1 through 5:1 looked virtually the same shade. 6:1 became noticeably lighter because at that level the amount of white base had reached the level of a very low dispersion of the aluminum throughout the mix.
Here is one of the very original 'PFG' test panels.

When I put it up on my test screen rig I wasn't sure what to expect. What I saw amazed me.
Here are some shots against a clone of a high end commercial screen around an N8.75 range of gray.

Right away the black levels jumped out at me, darker and deeper than any screen I had previously tested.

I did some lights on/lights off shots to check if it performed with normal room lighting on...
Lights off...

Lights on...

I quickly realized this had some potential and needed further testing.