New "Hairy" Material Is Almost Perfectly Hydrophobic 133
drewsup writes "Wolfgang Sigmund, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Florida, has created a material modeled after spider hairs that acts as a nearly perfect water-repelling surface. Quoting Science Daily: 'A paper about the surface, which works equally well with hot or cold water, appears in this month's edition of the journal Langmuir. Spiders use their water-repelling hairs to stay dry or avoid drowning, with water spiders capturing air bubbles and toting them underwater to breathe. Potential applications for UF's ultra-water-repellent surfaces are many, Sigmund said. When water scampers off the surface, it picks up and carries dirt with it, in effect making the surface self-cleaning. As such, it is ideal for some food packaging, or windows, or solar cells that must stay clean to gather sunlight, he said. Boat designers might coat hulls with it, making boats faster and more efficient.' Hairy glass, anyone?"
Hydrophopic (Score:3, Funny)
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You know, there are treatments for your condition [drgreene.com]. There's no need to suffer!
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Hydrophobia [wikipedia.org] is another name for rabies. Rabies is a pretty hairy disease! Nothing like a rabid duck to spoil your day.
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You bring up a good point about resistance versus viscous liquids, such as oil or ink or tar.
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Actually note this from the article :
Although he hasn't published the research yet, Sigmund said a variation of the surface also repels oil, a first for the industry.
It also says that the Hydrophobic properties are based on physics alone and not chemistry. And ...
the UF surface may be the most or among the most water phobic. Close-up photographs of water droplets on dime-sized plastic squares show that the droplets maintain their spherical shape, whether standing still or moving. Droplets bulge down on most other surfaces, dragging a kind of tail as they move. Sigmund said his surface is the first to shuttle droplets with no tail.
I thought it is pretty cool stuff.
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Actually note this from the article :
Although he hasn't published the research yet, Sigmund said a variation of the surface also repels oil, a first for the industry.
What would you call that? Unctuophobic?
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I wrote that "racist" post. I'm not racist. I'm a troll. If saying "grass is green" was effective as a troll then i would say that. It isn't, so i say "nigger." It obviously worked on you, you really seem to have got your panties in a bunch over it.
Best way to deal with racism is to not take racial things so goddamned seriously. Getting so upset over it is the exact opposite of realizing that "racial" differences are sup
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It's great that we realise this, but how about we look at why the fuck someone has a need at pissing off people and being a 'troll'?
I'm not a fan of the excessive PC tripe either, and when I was a little less mature I was angry at people for being overly sensitive and not allowing me to discuss taboo subjects, but that doesn't mean that attempted attention grabbing propaganda through a "door in the face" methodology is appropriate. Learn some tact and patience and address the issue earnestly please.
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> It's great that we realise this, but how about we look at why the fuck someone has a need at pissing off > people and being a 'troll'?
> I'm not a fan of the excessive PC tripe either, and when I was a little less mature I was angry at
> people for being overly sensitive and not allowing me to discuss taboo subjects, but that doesn't mean
> that attempted attention grabbing propaganda through a "door in the face" methodology is appropriate.
> Learn some tact and patience and address the issu
Re:Hydrophopic (Score:5, Funny)
Best way to deal with racism is to not take racial things so goddamned seriously.
Whoa, now. This is the internet. The internet is serious business.
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Slashdot mods don't troll-rate posts just because they're PC, they troll-rate them because your posts serve NO PURPOSE IN THIS DISCUSSION other than to waste our time. Stop wasting our collective bandwidth. Go away.
Does this still count as feeding the trolls? (Score:1)
So you're saying something that you don't actually believe just to upset the people who take you seriously? Seems like some sort of weird, desperate, misguided grab for the wrong kind of attention. Or is it just pure malice, spreading negative emotions like nails on the freeway?
I would actually have more respect for a misguided racist individual who truly believes in "nigger grease" than for someone who would say something like that knowing full well it isn't true just to cause harm.
That said, I do actually
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I hate racism. I hate racists. Somebody ban this racist idiot please.
So...you're a racistist?
Gore-tex (Score:2)
Re:Gore-tex (Score:5, Funny)
Al Gore is not going to be happy.
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Al Gore is from Texas? I thought he was from Kentucky?
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I doubt this material "breathes" the same way gore-tex does. Enjoy your sweat bath! :)
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just put the spider fibres on the inside of the jacket and it repels the sweat.
Probrem solved
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Also if you were to team it up with something that was somewhat polarized, you might be able to get an amazing a
Towelie? (Score:2)
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But if it's comfortable, it might make an excellent base layer.
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Jokes on you, nobody rtfa
Hydrophobic (Score:5, Funny)
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On the internet, nobody knows you're a rabid dog.
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Raw Data Video (Score:5, Informative)
Available here free of charge:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/suppl/10.1021/la903813g [acs.org]
Re:Raw Data Video (Score:4, Informative)
Warning.. movies appear to be in crap-tastic Indeo 5 format
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These are scientists, not video hardware technicians!
If you send them instructions along with a meerschaum pipe and some beard clippers as tokens of good will, they should be able to figure it out.
What's in a name? (Score:5, Funny)
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The beaver bag?
Isn't that one taken for a brand of feminine condom?
Hairy food packaging already exists: (Score:5, Funny)
it's called "fur".
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I don't know... Maybe the Kiwi's have an idea?
One problem ... (Score:2)
"See, it repels water .." STOMP! SQUISH! "... used to repel water."
So much for the self-cleaning materials idea.
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So much for the self-cleaning materials idea.
I don't care about self-cleaning materials. I want a frictionless toilet.
Kinda funny, but when reading The Mote in God's Eye [wikipedia.org], this idea was put forth by the science fiction writer after aliens altered and improved human technology. Loved it.
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Great idea! Great link too, didn't know the goo on my keyboard was called biofilm :-)
Do boats go faster because it repels water? (Score:5, Interesting)
Would there be a (very) thin layer of air between the boat and the water? Would there be a reduction in friction akin to the thin layer of water created when a skater's skates press down on the ice?
Or would boats go faster because no barnacles or mussels could become fastened on the hull of a boat? (I've heard that this used to be combatted with very toxic copper based compounds, no idea what they use now). If these microscopic hairs that were lifted from spiders work really well in preventing "fouling", why haven't whales evolved the same?
Just askin'.
Re:Do boats go faster because it repels water? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when evolution guarantees an optimal anatomical structure? If the whale body is "good enough" to survive and reproduce under the environmental conditions whales tend to live in, then why they should have evolved the same microscopic hairs that we see in spiders?
Re:Do boats go faster because it repels water? (Score:5, Informative)
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Indeed. It's worth nothing that, relatively speaking, whales are a fairly new evolutionary development. The first whales appear on the scene a mere 50 million years ago. The other question is one of competition. Some astoundingly suboptimal, inefficient designs have survived in nature for millions of years when they lacked significant competition or pressure in their niche. Whales don't seem to face a lot of competition or pressure, even less since we thinned their numbers in recent centuries.
Long stor
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Especially if the Japs keep eating them.
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Then, rather than all that swimming about, they can just spin their own fish nets :-)
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Who knows if in another 100 million years, the whales may evolve microscopic hairs.
And they can grow beards and learn to program in C.
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Since when evolution guarantees an optimal anatomical structure?
Evolution is pretty good at finding local hilltops. It may have trouble figuring out it needs to get off this hill to reach a higher one over there. The short term advantage for whales, when they first went aquatic, was probably to reduce their hair. They've climbed that hill to nakedness and now they can't see their way to a skin covered in spider hair.
If the whale body is "good enough" to survive and reproduce under the environmental conditions whales tend to live in
This is a bad interpretation of Darwinism. Under natural conditions there were always some whales under stress and dying for one reason or another, other
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My guess is that something that lives in water all the time shouldn't by hydrophobic. The water spiders primarily live in the air.
An otherwise dry, watertight boat hull would be fine, but if a boat hull were made of flesh, a hydrophobic coating probably wouldn't work so well. That's why fish are slippery, not hairy.
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My guess is that something that lives in water all the time shouldn't by hydrophobic. The water spiders primarily live in the air.
An otherwise dry, watertight boat hull would be fine, but if a boat hull were made of flesh, a hydrophobic coating probably wouldn't work so well. That's why fish are slippery, not hairy.
That's actually a very interesting point - I recall seeing something about using a permeated skin with micro-jets of air coming out of it to cut drag on trucks and airliners, maybe something similar could be done with boats (whether with air, water, or even oil).
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Actually, boats do go faster when they repel water... a thin layer of trapped air helps.
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actually sharks have unidirectional scales and dolphins are hairy, neither are affected by barnacles like whales
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That's the idea behind wet and drying the bottom of a boat. It's not a smooth finish, so it's supposed to provide a layer of trapped water between the boat and the flowing water.
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Whales might shed dead cells off their hides, and having an expendable regenerative hull certainly makes cleaning easier.
It's one fringe benefit for snakes shedding skins.
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Re:Do boats go faster because it repels water? (Score:4, Informative)
(I've heard that this used to be combatted with very toxic copper based compounds, no idea what they use now).
When I worked for some ship systems company, they used the desalination slurry (byproduct of the freshwater-making systems). Basically, they made the water around the ship too salty for things to want to stick around... Literally.
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From the Wikipedia page on dental denticles: [wikipedia.org]
Studies have found that the denticles create tiny vortices that reduce drag to make swimming more efficient. Denticles also allow sharks to swim silently compared to other fish that generate considerable noise when they ply the water.
Less drag means you can either go faster with the same power, or need less power (and use less fuel) at the same speed.
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Why haven't migratory birds evolved jet engines?
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Because just because you're ultra-hydrophobic, doesn't mean you're good at solving the problem of fouling.
The toxics are being phased out, but there's not much yet to replace them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofouling [wikipedia.org] is a very complex subject, with a lot of research dollars behind it these days.
The skinny of it is that many proteins will expose their hydrophobic cores and thus denature onto these ultra-hydrophobic surfaces; I'd imagine these surfaces to be excellent in pure water, and terrible in anythi
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If these microscopic hairs that were lifted from spiders work really well in preventing "fouling", why haven't whales evolved the same?
Sharks have evolved a mechanism which already works extremely well and is now actively being used for ocean faring ships [sharkskincoating.com]. Just because sharks have evolved such a mechanism, why would you assume whales would? Besides, sharks are predatory creatures, where the extra performance is likely key to their continued success, whereas most whales which suffer from fowling are typically not predatory.
It just rolls off my back like a duck... (Score:1, Redundant)
Inside tire treads? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm sure the uses are limitless, but one thing I wonder is what would happen to a car's traction through puddles if you put this material in the treads of tires?
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It would wear off rather quickly, unfortunately.
Re:Inside tire treads? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Certainly the inside of treads also get their share of weathering. However, it would remain to be seen if this material could withstand those conditions. Especially since the composition itself is flexible and using more hardy compounds would be an option.
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The hydrophobic material would be deposited inside the grooves, not where the rubber met the road.
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You might find that you'll get super hydroplaning. Then they'll wear away.
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Really? Even though they are inside the actual treads and not on the ground-facing surface of the tire? I would think water would flow through the treads better and thus prevent that.
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AH! In the channels of the treads. Probably not the hydroplaning then, but you would have a wear problem. Stuff gets into the channels all the time and frequently enough lodges there for a while.
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Unless you put the material in the treads, effectively increasing the flow rate through the tread at any given force. That's a gain for efficiency.
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Videos (Score:2)
This article is worthless without videos.
Hairy and hydrophobic... (Score:3, Funny)
... I asked my cat and she somehow didn`t look surprised. How many lifes does this new stuff have?
We'll know how effective it is (Score:3, Insightful)
when the records start falling in the next olympics.
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Self Cleaning (Score:1, Interesting)
Sure it will be self cleaning for dirt, but I imagine that a something this hydrophobic is going to be a grease magnet. I can't wait to clean the chinese food off my spider coat.
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At first I was going to make a snide comment along the lines of "ever heard of soap, aka a surfactant" but then I realized that if you can't really wet this substance, would it actually clean up with soap or not? I would guess yes, because the soap would still attach to the grease/oil but it may be a moot point anyway. Ever seen an oil soaked lotus leaf? That is a natural hydrophobic material, whose hydrophobic properties are also derived from its physical structure and not its chemistry. You also have to
The Problem (Score:5, Informative)
Sweaty, hairy, stinky people (Score:3, Funny)
Sound true enough to me. Sometimes the people who don't shower are also hairy and disgusting.
I Feel Better Already (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm sure all those loose broken-off nanohairs, are going to do ahhhhhh my ahhhhhtsm-heeeee ... ahzm-whiiiiiiiiifffffffffff ... asthma .... ahhhhhhh - a lot of good.
After all, they're technological. And therefore completely different from natural irritants - sucha as cat's hairs, pollen or random bursts of chelisserae (don't ask). :)
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My wife really wanted a pet tarantula, but her Doctor advised against it due to the fact that she's a severe asthmatic.
Those little spiky hairs get everywhere apparently.
Nottingham Univ. super hydrophobic demo (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the video [youtube.com]. Fascinating stuff-- the first sample is a copper plate with copper oxide crystals coated in a material very similar to Teflon.
Slick! (Score:2)
What slick piece of engineering!
(I'll be here all night ;)
Russians invented it already (Score:1)
There is a punk rock group in Russia named "Hairy glass" (translated from Russian of course, original reads "Volosatoye steklo")
Another well known hairy material... (Score:5, Informative)
Another well known hairy material is asbestos. Just sayin'
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So is fiberglass. And cotton.
Hmm... (Score:2)
What happens when there is a surfactant in the water?
Also, not so sure that most spiders can stay completely dry like a polar bear can.
Oh, by the way, don't bother trying to trademark the name 'Polar Hair'. It's already taken.
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Well, with existing tech, I have some shirts I got a few years ago with a nanomaterial coating based on small hairs - if you're splashed with a little water, it will bead up and roll off. It washes normally though because once detergent is added it soaks in with no problem.
old news and the hype is only partly true. (Score:3, Informative)
Superhydrophobicity by thin trapped air layers is not new at all - I recall seeing a seminar in my physics department ~10 years ago. The self-cleaning aspect does work nicely, but generally the surface structures lack the durability to last long enough to be useful. It also doesn't work for boat hulls because the air slowly dissolves into the water until the trapped air layer is lost.
Then again, you are covered in spider hair... (Score:2)
What good is it not to touch water, when you are touching a spider hair surface instead? I can keep dry just as well, by covering it in a rubber suit. ^^
non-fogging bathroom mirror (Score:1)
Battery/Fuel Cell Air Cathode? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why use spider hair (Score:1, Funny)
'A paper about the surface, which works equally well
When it seems the paper the wrote works equally well?
*ducks*
They've discovered Italians? (Score:1, Troll)
Another use. (Score:1)
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