Dirty Cars - Winter 16/17
Discussion
swisstoni said:
On a semi-serious note, how hard can it be to design a properly self cleaning paint?
Despite all the claims, there still isn't anything that doesn't need some manual assistance.
Bit crap in 2017 imho.
In one word, extremely. Even self-cleaning glass, a coating and tech we've been working on for 20+years still isn't infallible. To give an idea of how complex it is, you have to generate a coating that has adhesion properties compatible with the paint surface, but incompatible with general contaminants/dirt and not have electrostatic interactions that would attract dust etc. Beyond that, it needs to be super-hydrophobic in nature, which on a relative scale is easy enough, but that just results in beading - you'd still need to find a way of removing the beaded water from the car surface; gravity would assist on side and heavily sloped panels, but roofs/boots/parts of bonnets/boot sills etc would be trickier. Moreover, you have application to consider, and so the tech you put into the rest has to be compatible with the delivery method, as well as being cheap enough to be economically viable and considered as an option over the incredibly cheap (on a relative scale) and ultimately almost as well performing SiO2 coatings that are all the market rage at the moment.Despite all the claims, there still isn't anything that doesn't need some manual assistance.
Bit crap in 2017 imho.
Cookeh said:
In one word, extremely. Even self-cleaning glass, a coating and tech we've been working on for 20+years still isn't infallible. To give an idea of how complex it is, you have to generate a coating that has adhesion properties compatible with the paint surface, but incompatible with general contaminants/dirt and not have electrostatic interactions that would attract dust etc. Beyond that, it needs to be super-hydrophobic in nature, which on a relative scale is easy enough, but that just results in beading - you'd still need to find a way of removing the beaded water from the car surface; gravity would assist on side and heavily sloped panels, but roofs/boots/parts of bonnets/boot sills etc would be trickier. Moreover, you have application to consider, and so the tech you put into the rest has to be compatible with the delivery method, as well as being cheap enough to be economically viable and considered as an option over the incredibly cheap (on a relative scale) and ultimately almost as well performing SiO2 coatings that are all the market rage at the moment. Etc etc etc.
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