DailyDirt: Like Water Off A Duck's Back...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Surfaces that repel water are pretty fascinating to watch in action, especially on clothes when possible stains are magically avoided. There are plenty of other uses for hydrophobic materials that are cool, and some newer materials are omniphobic -- even superomniphobic. Here are just a few examples of these products that may be protecting all of our gadgets someday.

• A superhydrophobic coating called NeverWet can make a variety of materials extremely water resistent -- preventing things like ice buildup, corrosion and biofilm formation. As a demo, coating an iPhone with this stuff allowed it to be submerged for 30 minutes and still work... [url]
• Bio-inspired materials can be omniphobic -- repelling both oil and water. Plants do it. Maybe educated fleas humans can, too. [url]
• Ceramic materials that repel water could form more durable hydrophobic coatings. Rare earth oxides aren't so rare, and they could potentially create some pretty cool superhydrophobic surfaces. [url]
• A recently-created superomniphobic surface coating repels almost any liquid except chlorofluorocarbons. Non-Newtonian liquids also seem to "bounce" off this stuff -- which hasn't been seen before. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: coatings, hydrophobic, materials, neverwet, omniphobic