Thread: Spray-on liquid glass is about to revolutionize almost everything

February 2, 2010 by Lin Edwards


PhysOrg.com) -- Spray-on liquid glass is transparent, non-toxic, and can protect virtually any surface against almost any damage from hazards such as water, UV radiation, dirt, heat, and bacterial infections. The coating is also flexible and breathable, which makes it suitable for use on an enormous array of products.

The liquid glass spray (technically termed “SiO2 ultra-thin layering”) consists of almost pure silicon dioxide (silica, the normal compound in glass) extracted from quartz sand. Water or ethanol is added, depending on the type of surface to be coated. There are no additives, and the nano-scale glass coating bonds to the surface because of the quantum forces involved. According to the manufacturers, liquid glass has a long-lasting antibacterial effect because microbes landing on the surface cannot divide or replicate easily.

Liquid glass was invented in Turkey and the patent is held by Nanopool, a family-owned German company. Research on the product was carried out at the Saarbrücken Institute for New Materials. Nanopool is already in negotiations in the UK with a number of companies and with the National Health Service, with a view to its widespread adoption.

The liquid glass spray produces a water-resistant coating only around 100 nanometers (15-30 molecules) thick. On this nanoscale the glass is highly flexible and breathable. The coating is environmentally harmless and non-toxic, and easy to clean using only water or a simple wipe with a damp cloth. It repels bacteria, water and dirt, and resists heat, UV light and even acids. UK project manager with Nanopool, Neil McClelland, said soon almost every product you purchase will be coated with liquid glass.

Food processing companies in Germany have already carried out trials of the spray, and found sterile surfaces that usually needed to be cleaned with strong bleach to keep them sterile needed only a hot water rinse if they were coated with liquid glass. The levels of sterility were higher for the glass-coated surfaces, and the surfaces remained sterile for months.

Other organizations, such as a train company and a hotel chain in the UK, and a hamburger chain in Germany, are also testing liquid glass for a wide range of uses.

A year-long trial of the spray in a Lancashire hospital also produced “very promising” results for a range of applications including coatings for equipment, medical implants, catheters, sutures and bandages. The war graves association in the UK is investigating using the spray to treat stone monuments and grave stones, since trials have shown the coating protects against weathering and graffiti. Trials in Turkey are testing the product on monuments such as the Ataturk Mausoleum in Ankara.

The liquid glass coating is breathable, which means it can be used on plants and seeds. Trials in vineyards have found spraying vines increases their resistance to fungal diseases, while other tests have shown sprayed seeds germinate and grow faster than untreated seeds, and coated wood is not attacked by termites. Other vineyard applications include coating corks with liquid glass to prevent “corking” and contamination of wine. The spray cannot be seen by the naked eye, which means it could also be used to treat clothing and other materials to make them stain-resistant. McClelland said you can “pour a bottle of wine over an expensive silk shirt and it will come right off”.

In the home, spray-on glass would eliminate the need for scrubbing and make most cleaning products obsolete. Since it is available in both water-based and alcohol-based solutions, it can be used in the oven, in bathrooms, tiles, sinks, and almost every other surface in the home, and one spray is said to last a year.

Liquid glass spray is perhaps the most important nanotechnology product to emerge to date. It will be available in DIY stores in Britain soon, with prices starting at around £5 ($8 US). Other outlets, such as many supermarkets, may be unwilling to stock the products because they make enormous profits from cleaning products that need to be replaced regularly, and liquid glass would make virtually all of them obsolete.

More information: Nanopool: NANOPOOL

and cures rheumatism, senility, and hemroids as well. In fact, add it to your corn flakes in the morning while you're at it.

I've got some magic beans if anyone is interested.

Sounds like a great way to stop STDs. Spray it on your dick

Simon

Originally Posted by attaboy

The spray cannot be seen by the naked eye, which means it could also be used to treat clothing

The Emperor's new clothes maybe?

Spray me!

The Dangers of Nanoparticles

Do Nanoparticles in Food Pose a Health Risk?

Could be very useful on boat hulls

I'll back the algae and mollusks for whatever money you want

Yes it seems almost too good to be true, like many of those wonderful promised wonder materials we used to see on Tomorrow's World back in the 60's. The fact that they claim that it would make cleaning materials obsolete means there are some pretty big players out to drag it down.

As for boat hulls, I'm with Mid on this one, there have been no end of wonder antifouling coatings brough to the market but ships still spend time in dry dock being blast cleaned and recoated.

Brilliant and could not have come at a better time. Thanks Attaboy for posting this.

Originally Posted by Belepheron

Yes it seems almost too good to be true, like many of those wonderful promised wonder materials we used to see on Tomorrow's World back in the 60's.

Ah, Tomorrow's World with James Burke.
I remember watching him demonstrate the first CD.
Dipped a CD in a bucket of water, trod it in a pile of sand and covered it with dust.
Played perfectly after cleaning.

I keep CD in a cover and I'm lucky if it can still be read after a year.
What the fcuk happened?

Originally Posted by Thetyim

Could be very useful on boat hulls

And mugging people.

Originally Posted by Thetyim

Could be very useful on boat hulls

Or brushing your teeth with it....

liquid glass

indeed , glass is a liquid , nothing new there .

Very strange claims there.

A thin flexible glass coating is used in plastic beer bottles to keep Oxygen out which would spoil the taste of the beer. That invention made plastic bottles for beer possible. The plastic of the common soft drink bottles keeps the CO2 in but not Oxygen out. But this glass coating lets gasses through?

But the homepage does not look like the obvious fake as in most of these cases. Usually if I look at the homepage where such claims are made I roll on the floor laughing after the introducting paragraph.

AH HA! but can it get you pissed and make you sleep with ugly burds!!