Learning From The Lotus Flower – Selfcleaning Coatings On Glass

Martin Baumann, George Sakoske, Lutz Poth, Gerhard Tünker

Glasses in structural or functional applications are mostly exposed in dirt environments and suffer under hydrolytic stress. Followed by increased loss of esthetic value and functionality, the environmental conditions could result in irreversible damages, especially where cleaning is difficult and requires significant efforts and costs.

This paper will describe a selfcleaning system based on a superhydrophobic surface, which has evolved biologically over millions of years and today could be easily applied on glassware for buildings, vehicles, lighting, and optical sensoring.

The technology is based on selforganizing softcoats and normally fits well in industrial processes, which are known for coating glasses. The properties of the so-called Lotus-Effect® surfaces are superhydrophobic and selfcleaning, with considerable physico-chemical stability.

The surface structures are on the scale of several nanometers up to 50 microns. The coatings could be
transparent, translucent, opaque, colored, or colorless.

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