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Canadian Researchers Develop Permanent Anti-Fog Coating
cylonlover writes "Tired of your glasses fogging up on cold days, or of having to spit in your dive mask before putting it on? Those hassles may become a thing of the past, as researchers from Quebec City's Université Laval have developed what they claim is the world's first permanent anti-fog coating. Just one application is said to work indefinitely on eyeglasses, windshields, camera lenses, or any other transparent glass or plastic surface."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeDIYaVW8Og
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Swimming goggles would be a go for this. Every time I see someone spitting into them in the pool I want to drown them.
Divide a cake by zero. Is it still a cake?
Just like the "scratch proof" and "anti glare" coatings they ripped me off for when I bought my glasses. Neither work!
The actual anti-fog coating itself is composed of polyvinyl alcohol, which is a hydrophilic compound that causes the individual droplets of condensation to disperse
Unless I'm waaaay off, I think they mean hydrophobic, as in "it doesn not bond with water".
PLEASE!!!
I'm one of those people who perspires walking in a blizzard.
I would pay quite a bit more for a working anti-fog coating than anything that is currently on the market, since they don't work very well for me. I need my snowboard-riding goggles, my motorcycle face shields (and, yes, I have ridden with snow all around; just don't ride on ice) , and ALL of my sunglasses coated.
I've just got out of my shower and can't see through my living-room windows as they've all fogged up. On the plus side - it's cold and wet outside, and I can't see it anymore!
However, to get back on topic, I think this is a seriously cool bit of tech if they can pull it off cheaply enough to enable it to be used widely. How many times have you got in your car in the winter, cleared the snow, turned the heaters on and promptly found that every window in the vehicle steams up so you can't see anyway - how useful would this be? Hell, I'd quite happily pay to have this coating added to my car - much better use of my money than tinting the windows.
The difficulty with anti-fog surfaces is keeping it clean. For glasses/sunglasses this isn't so hard since you can easily clean the lenses in a sink with soap. For the inside surface of a car windshield it's a totally different story. In most cars the inside windshield fogs up mostly because it's dirty. The windshield glass itself is hydrophilic enough that it wouldn't be fogging up a lot, but there's a layer of goop on the glass that's hydrophobic which fogs up easily. The goop resembles a mix of everything you ever smell inside the car (new car smell, old car smell, exhaust fumes, McDonalds, Starbucks, bad breath). If you try super-thoroughly cleaning one half the windshield, and not clean the other half, you'll get an idea of how bad it is.
Why is it that when the discovery is made by Canadians, it appears in the story title?
indefinitely != permanently
OK, from the actual article (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/am1010964 ), the researchers made a polymeric coating on glass surfaces. They proved that it can resist 24hrs immersion in water. how does this mean that it is "permanent"?? It could be easily removed by repeated cleaning procedures, which is the major problem with current antifog coatings as well. Secondly, the idea that it will work with ANY plastic surface is ludicrous...since they only made it on glass..I can think of many polymers it is unlikely to work with. But I don't KNOW because I did not try it either!
I used to use Rain-X anti-fog on the inside of my windshield, and the only result was that the water condensed into larger droplets, ran down the windshield behind the dashboard, and caused mold. My insurance company had to total the car because of the health hazard.
No coating of any kind has ever worked on anything I've bought. I'm very careful with everything but coatings just don't last if you use the item often enough to get it dirty, need to clean it, etc. There is no such thing as a "permanent coating" when it comes to glass and plastic that are flexible enough, or under such force, that they move.
Glass-fogging is also not a major problem except in a closed environment (e.g. a camera lens). You carry a tissue. Low-tech but it means your glasses cost less than 1/2 of what the "coated" ones cost for the 2 seconds of inconvenience maybe one or twice a day only during winter.
However, glass-fogging is pretty easy to solve. Heat the surface. It doesn't need to be hot-to-the-touch, just as warm as the hottest air around it. This is how car demisters work and nobody whinges about them "wearing off" or "needing a reapplication", etc. It only takes a minute for them to clear the screen at best and then you don't need them for a long while after. The only reason it takes a minute is because you have to clear a huge area.
You can buy heated gloves. You can buy heated vests. You can buy heated socks. You can buy heated hats. They are cheap, warm things up nicely, and run off AAA's. If "fogging" is such a problem in these sports/activities/uses, why not replicate the greatest, most prevalent, most effective solution known to man - the demister or "warm the surface up a bit". Anything else seems liable to just causing little puddles at the bottom of your windscreen, in your glasses / cameras etc. because the water has to go somewhere - at least if you evaporate it, it's likely to escape.
Motorcycle visors - more than enough room and tech to warm them up a bit. Ski Goggles - same. Camera lenses - same (in fact, some do just that already). Car windscreens - gosh, wonder what we can do there.
did you also use armorall wipes on your ass? i use the defogger setting on my climate controls to clear fog on the inside of my windshield
I cycle and it rains here a lot so I want a hydrophobic coating on my lenses so the rain runs off. But it's also often cold and humid so I don't want fogged lenses and that needs a hydrophilic coating. Which one do I really want, or do I need different coatings on either side of the lenses?
... will finally do something!
Use any of the other methods here, or any window cleaner, then get a clean dry cloth and work it. Push hard, polish the glass. Transparency.
This is by far the best way to clean mirrors too, reducing the frequency of using any cleaner at all. Polishing usually does the trick.
At the very least, it'll give some of you a little exercise.
Canadian researchers eh? I'll bet the number one thing they were thinking about for this was hockey face shields.
I've got 99 problems, but some fog ain't one.
"Health hazard"? Unless you're immunosuppressed or hypersensitive, mold isn't really a health hazard. If it were, the US between the Appalachians and the Great Plains would be uninhabitable.
If it splashes in your eyes, will your tear ducts stop working forever?
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
Yes, but can they add this to a bottle of KY lube, I hate when the friction fogs up my girlfriends glasses.
Pentax/Hoya has an oil resistant lens coating that's probably patented...
Was wondering if they had a real bad frog problem in Canada akin to Australia's cane toads or something...
In fact, when you think you smell chlorine you in fact SMELL the saliva, urine, dead skin, and dilute human feces.
http://ezinearticles.com/?What-Causes-That-Chlorine-Smell?&id=1682675
Hivemind harvest in progress..
Does that mean I could use a little bit of fiberglass mold release agent? 'Cause that's what it is - PVA (or poly vinyl alcohol). I'll have to try it the next time I go diving...
I know this is stereotypical but I think this will work wonders for ice hockey visors. The damn things keep fogging up no matter what you put on them.
The true purpose is clearly for hockey face shields.
Yeah, but who wants to rub poutine all over their nice expensive goggles?
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
Great! I've always wanted an anti-frog coating.
> The university is currently in negotiations with a major eyewear manufacturer
Yeah who could that be!? Luxottica since they own any and all eyeglasses related companies in the world anyway.
[From the abstract to this researcher's recent work on anti-fog coatings at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21381643%5D
So, you're going to drag this plasma functionalization equipment around with you to stop your glasses fogging up? Or maybe not ; you're just going to have to take your glasses to the optical lab to have this "permanent" coating applied. Which doesn't sound so bad. Yet.
Uh huh ... yes ... one plastic to bond to the glass and to the other plastic ; the other plastic to provide a hydrophilic surface. (yes children, hydrophilic not hydrophobic ; this evidently works by constraining the water to form a uniform coating on the surface instead of forming irregular droplets. As a spectacle wearer with a chemist parent, I worked out this aspect of stopping my glasses fogging up long before I left home for university. It is fairly unavoidable.) The hydrophilic surface holds the water to it's surface instead of forming droplets that disrupt the rays of light more than the uniform surface of the glass does.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
- to elections?
got tired of wiping stuff over their hockey visors and having to clean their glasses upon entering the bar each time after going out for a smoke.
Ingenuity at work!