SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the I-see-what-you-did-there-but-my-windows-fog-at-night dept.
An article published this month describes A new transparent metasurface that uses sunlight to counteract fogging of surfaces.
Fogging glass affects a variety of things such as glasses, cars, spacesuits and the mirror in the bathroom. Fogging can be inconvenient, dangerous or even deadly depending on the circumstances.
That's why cars and space suits have their own air-conditioning systems to remove or prevent fogging.
But air-conditioning is expensive, bulky, and environmentally unfriendly. So engineers and materials scientists are keen to find a way to prevent fogging more effectively.
To that end, researchers from Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule University in Zürich (ETH), engineered the new material layering gold nanoparticles between Titanium Dioxide on top of a glass substrate. The nanoparticles absorb sunlight raising the glass' surface temperature up to 10 °C. This causes water to either not condense or to evaporate much more quickly from the surface.
The surface is robust and relatively easy to make. When compared with conventional superhydrophilic and superhydrophobic antifogging surfaces:
The researchers say their new metasurface significantly reduces the rate of condensation and increases the rate of evaporation compared with other materials.
The researchers mention performance gains for various applications such as "windows, windshields, electronic displays, cameras, mirrors, and eyewear."
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday April 15 2019, @01:15PM (1 child)
Depends on the frequency response. As you've probably learned the hard way, clouds do almost nothing to block UV. And UV is also conveniently outside the spectrum where absorption would interfere with visibility.
(Score: 2) by hellcat on Saturday April 20 2019, @01:47PM
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/uv_index/gif_files/cle_17.png [noaa.gov]
As I've learned "the hard way," UV is only a problem when there are fewer than 50% cloud cover. As you can see from the NOAA graph, we don't get many of those. Our clouds, by the way, are typically heavy cumulus, generally two layers.