Scientists Create World's Most Water-Resistant Surface (theguardian.com) 46
Sammy Gecsoyler reports via The Guardian: A research team in Finland, led by Robin Ras, from Aalto University, and aided by researchers from the University of Jyvaskyla, has developed a mechanism to make water droplets slip off surfaces with unprecedented efficacy. Cooking, transportation, optics and hundreds of other technologies are affected by how water sticks to surfaces or slides off them, and adoption of water-resistant surfaces in the future could improve many household and industrial technologies, such as plumbing, shipping and the auto industry. The research team created solid silicon surfaces with a "liquid-like" outer layer that repels water by making droplets slide off surfaces. The highly mobile topcoat acts as a lubricant between the product and the water droplets.
Sakari Lepikko, the lead author of the study, which was published in Nature Chemistry on Monday, said: "Our work is the first time that anyone has gone directly to the nanometer-level to create molecularly heterogeneous surfaces." By carefully adjusting conditions, such as temperature and water content, inside a reactor, the team could fine-tune how much of the silicon surface the monolayer covered. Using the new method, the team ended up creating the slipperiest liquid surface in the world. According to Lepikko, the discovery promises to have implications wherever droplet-repellent surfaces are needed. This covers hundreds of examples from daily life to industrial environments.
Sakari Lepikko, the lead author of the study, which was published in Nature Chemistry on Monday, said: "Our work is the first time that anyone has gone directly to the nanometer-level to create molecularly heterogeneous surfaces." By carefully adjusting conditions, such as temperature and water content, inside a reactor, the team could fine-tune how much of the silicon surface the monolayer covered. Using the new method, the team ended up creating the slipperiest liquid surface in the world. According to Lepikko, the discovery promises to have implications wherever droplet-repellent surfaces are needed. This covers hundreds of examples from daily life to industrial environments.
Naah... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
But the most resistant to water is a two-year-old's skin when it's bath time.
Phone screen (Score:1)
Sounds great but can it be made totally transparent and bullet-proof so it can be used on mobile phone screens?
Re: (Score:2)
More forever chemicals ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:More forever chemicals ... (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If you're concerned about the impact to the environment, don't worry.
The racing speedboats this will be put on first, will ensure the coating is a moot point.
Re: More forever chemicals ... (Score:3)
Silicone is remarkably good at not sticking to pretty much anything⦠except for silicon containing substances. No pfases necessary.
Re: (Score:2)
I can imagine that it could be done by nano-texturing surfaces, but if they weren't "forever chemicals" before that, they probably would be afterwards. Unless, of course, it was quite susceptible to "wetting" by oil based stuff.
Smartphone covers... (Score:2)
Now imagine smartphone manufacturers using that coating for the backside of their phones... Instant profit!
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure about the claim (Score:5, Funny)
I remember a former sysadmin colleague who smelled like he was extremely water-resistant.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Real world hardness? (Score:2)
the monolayer
It sounds like this "nanometre scale" coating would be easily damaged. It would be handy to know how much wear and tear it can take before it becomes useless.
Re: (Score:2)
The two problems with all of these nanotech developments have always been how terrible nanoparticles are for living things and how fragile the actual products are.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe the liquid part is only referring to the coating.
As the product has been carefully adjusted to repel water my worry is that only a small amount of a contaminant in the water might damage the slippery surface or even make it ineffective.
Re: Real world hardness? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Beavers use oil to repel water, and it needs to be reapplied frequently.
I wonder how it would work (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
As a coating on the hull of a boat
Sounds like something I might like to "wax" my car with.
Re: (Score:2)
Boats typically use sacrificial surface coats to keep marine growth under control. Regardless of the friction coefficient, the bottom of your boat is going to get damaged over time no matter what.
Re: (Score:1)
Hey! We FINALLY have found a way to recycle the human garbage and STILL people complain!
There is just no pleasing you, is there?
It's not the water that's a problem (Score:2)
It's the stuff that's in it and parts of that always stay behind, ruining the effects after some time.
Quasicrystals (Score:2)
There's a coating available (aka 'marble') that uses a qusicrystal-heavy ceramic coating rather than the PF* family.
It doesn't last forever and it's about double the cost of a teflon pan but it works well. Somehow quasicrystals prevent normal sticking.
You can find Korean imports on eBay. QW, etc.
The discount store 'ceramic' pans suck and often are coated wirh teflon anyway.
I'm still convinced that home cooking with teflon is a better bet than processed foods but why not avoid it if you can?
Or just polish ca
Re: (Score:2)
I try to rely on cast iron, but it's heavy, and there are lots of applications where it's not reasonable.
So far I haven't encountered a universal best surface, even for a field a limited as cooking.
Cars? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
My first thought was windshields. It'd be sort of like having Rain-X built in.
Silicon? Or Silicone? (Score:2)
Silicon? Or silicone?
The summary and the article says silicon, but that seems unlikely. (and the paper itself is behind a paywall).
Re: (Score:1)
Silicon? Or silicone?
A lot of different things are discuessed.
A liquid-like layer of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), perfluoropolyether (PFPE) and polyisobutene (PIB). Four types of liquid-like surfaces (LLSs): polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-grafted, perfluoropolyether (PFPE)-grafted, alkyl-grafted and polyethylene glycol (PEG)-grafted LLSs. Copolymer of cage-like polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) bearing PDMS (POSS-g-PDMS) and copolymer of ladder-like polysilsesquioxane (LASQ) bearing PFPE (LASQ-g-PFPE), which are us
Re: (Score:2)
Silicon? Or silicone?
The summary and the article says silicon, but that seems unlikely. (and the paper itself is behind a paywall).
I am from Italy and here we call them both sicilicon.
Re: (Score:2)
I thought "sicilicon" would be a member of the Mafia.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Good mnemonic, but to be clear, silica is what quartz is made of. Silicate is what rocks are made of. Silly cat [google.com] is what memes are made of. And silicon is what chips are made of.
*(not the ones you eat).
Water resistant watercraft hulls (Score:2)
What happens if watercraft (both big and small - from jet skis to the giant cargo ships) have a coating of this?
Will it reduce / increase / no change in terms of friction thru the water?
Re: (Score:3)
The real question is "Will it keep off barnacles?". If it will, then it may find lots of uses (but see next paragraph), even if it doesn't do much else. But I'm not sure that barnacle adhesion is based on water rather than oils.
My suspicion is that it will be expensive enough that boat and ship surfaces are unreasonable. Look for uses in other areas, where you need to cover smaller areas.
Re: (Score:2)
There are some applications where the expense is alot less important compared to capability usually.
Three letter agencies and the armed forces comes to mind.
That's assuming the coating does help with friction or something else.
Is it using PFAS? (Score:2)
Congratulations, (Score:2)
...these quacks reinvented the duck.
Cornflakes (Score:1)
I thought this already existed (Score:2)