Nanotechnology has been pretty hyped in recent years with articles in 
magazines and even regular newspapers promising engineered materials with 
fantastic properties in the future. However, I though it was still strictly 
something in the labs at this point and not ready for commercialization yet.

And then, some weeks ago, a company called Nanocover has been showing TV 
commercials in national TV about their nanocover products, available right 
here and right now, and looking almost unbelievable, just like you'd 
imagine. Their commercial shows a white sofa lowered down in a red liquid 
and then lifted up again, still completely white. In the end we see the arm 
of a (supposed) scientist brushing a few remaining red drops off the sofa 
with his coat sleeve, and they just slide off like small balls, leaving no 
trail.

http://www.nanocover.com

They have products to repel water, oil and dirt, other products to avoid 
mist on glass and mirrors, products for fire protection and various other 
things. There are separate products designed to bind to different 
materials - textile, steel, wood, plastic etc.

You can read about the products in the Danish, Norwegian and English 
versions of the site while the German version has no information yet. It 
seems that products can only actually be bought in Denmark so far, but they 
are working on it for the three other countries too (and many more I 
presume). It's not even very expensive (prices are listed in the Danish and 
Norwegian versions of the site only). I'd try it out, if it wasn't for the 
fact that the safety measures for spraying the stuff only things make it 
somewhat cumbersome, but then again, not much more cumbersome than if you 
want to paint some furniture or something.

The commercial can be seen here:
http://www.nanocover.dk/om_nanocover/reklamefilm/nanocover_tekstil__laeder_.html

So, the nanotechnologic future is here...?

Rune

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"Rune" <aut### [at] runevisioncom> wrote in message
news:4710a2c6$1@news.povray.org...

> And then, some weeks ago, a company called Nanocover has been showing TV
> commercials in national TV about their nanocover products, available right
> here and right now, and looking almost unbelievable, just like you'd
> imagine. Their commercial shows a white sofa lowered down in a red liquid
> and then lifted up again, still completely white.

Fabric protectors (like Scotchgard) and water repellants have been available
for ages (that's why people wax their cars), nothing "nano", just regular
technology marketed under a hype branding. Also, not all (red) liquids are
adhesive - depends on surface tension and cohesivity (mercury won't "stick",
for instance).

Post a reply to this message

somebody wrote:
> "Rune" <aut### [at] runevisioncom> wrote in message
> news:4710a2c6$1@news.povray.org...
> 
>> And then, some weeks ago, a company called Nanocover has been showing TV
>> commercials in national TV about their nanocover products, available right
>> here and right now, and looking almost unbelievable, just like you'd
>> imagine. Their commercial shows a white sofa lowered down in a red liquid
>> and then lifted up again, still completely white.
> 
> Fabric protectors (like Scotchgard) and water repellants have been available
> for ages (that's why people wax their cars), nothing "nano", just regular
> technology marketed under a hype branding. Also, not all (red) liquids are
> adhesive - depends on surface tension and cohesivity (mercury won't "stick",
> for instance).

That doesn't mean that this particular company *isn't* using 
nanotechnology.  Actually this sort of application sounds a lot more 
feasible than other SF nanotech tricks...Scotchgard and its ilk might 
have been around a while, but that doesn't mean you can't do a lot 
better by playing with how you apply it or what exactly you're applying.

-- 
Tim Cook
http://home.bellsouth.net/p/PWP-empyrean

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"somebody" wrote:
> Fabric protectors (like Scotchgard) and water repellants have been 
> available
> for ages (that's why people wax their cars), nothing "nano", just regular
> technology marketed under a hype branding.

No, while some brands are like this, NanoCover does use actual 
nanotechnology. I found out there was a program in TV a while ago (I was 
able to see it online) testing if their products lived up to the commercial. 
Their results were mixed - some of the fabric repelled the red fruit juice 
they spilled on it, while other parts of the fabric did not. The reason was 
unclear - maybe insufficient or incorrect preparation of the textile was my 
impression, while they would not admit this and simply didn't comment on the 
strange inconsistent behavior. They did show the NanoCover liquid to a 
university professor though, who confirmed (with a nanomicroscope or 
whatever it's called) that it did contain nano-particles, but who could not 
comment on how effective it would be, saying that it could only be 
determined through testing.

> Also, not all (red) liquids are adhesive - depends on surface
> tension and cohesivity (mercury won't "stick", for instance).

Hmm, I dunno... It was a transparent red liquid. Anyway, regardless of what 
was used in the commercial, the hosts of the TV show was able to partly 
replicate the results - though not entirely.

I have been searching for online forum posts of people with experience with 
these products, and while some results are disappointing, others are 
reportedly very brilliant. Some of the posts I found very trustworthy, 
particularly one from a person who had tried their products on several 
materials and reported no effect with some of the things he had tried, but 
big satisfaction with others.

Rune

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Rune wrote:
> They did show the NanoCover liquid to a 
> university professor though, who confirmed (with a nanomicroscope or 
> whatever it's called) that it did contain nano-particles, 

I'm not sure I'd trust the opinion of someone who called them 
"nano-particles".  :-)

The difference between nano-tech and chemistry is (for the most part) 
the design and manufacturing, not the final product. (Unless you're 
talking about actual nano machinery, like atomic-sized engines.)

I.e., if the "nano-cover" works by having little gripping claws to hold 
it to the fabric, and a set of bellows on the other side to blow water 
away, maybe you could see that with a 'scope. Otherwise, I'm not sure 
how you'd determine whether it's really "nano" or not.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

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Darren New wrote:
> Rune wrote:
>> They did show the NanoCover liquid to a university professor though, 
>> who confirmed (with a nanomicroscope or whatever it's called)

A decent scanning electron microscope would be sufficient.

> I'm not sure I'd trust the opinion of someone who called them 
> "nano-particles".  :-)

Nothing wrong with the term. I've heard it used in proper context before.

> I.e., if the "nano-cover" works by having little gripping claws to hold 
> it to the fabric, and a set of bellows on the other side to blow water 
> away, maybe you could see that with a 'scope. Otherwise, I'm not sure 
> how you'd determine whether it's really "nano" or not.

It just refers to the size of whatever discrete entities you're dealing 
with. If they're less than 100 microns across I'd be perfectly happy 
referring to them as such, but it usually refers to particles (and, one 
day perhaps, machines) that are tens of nanometres across or smaller.

Most nanotech is just particles at the moment, or nanoscale features on 
normal substrates. I think. Fullerenes count too, like buckyballs or 
buckytubes. There's all sorts of novel applications but it's mainly just 
paints and coatings at the moment. I think actual machines are quite a 
way off yet...

Post a reply to this message

Bill Pragnell wrote:
> If they're less than 100 microns across
I meant nm, of course.

Post a reply to this message

> Fabric protectors (like Scotchgard) and water repellants have been 
> available
> for ages (that's why people wax their cars), nothing "nano", just regular
> technology marketed under a hype branding. Also, not all (red) liquids are
> adhesive - depends on surface tension and cohesivity (mercury won't 
> "stick",
> for instance).

Yep, it really does depend on what liquid they used.  I used to have a set 
of marker pens for measuring the stickyness of surfaces (I forget what the 
scale was, but they were numbered 1-50 or something).  The 1 was like 
mercury, it would stick to nothing (not even normal paper) and would always 
form blobs.  The 20-30 would mark and stick to pretty much anything (like a 
permanent marker).  We were using them when we had problems with print not 
sticking very well to plastic wrap.  They could have easily used a liquid 
like I had in my marker pen #1 and it would pretty much "run off" of 
anything you put in it.

One of the most interesting uses of "nanotech" would be to keep your car 
windscreen clean, without the need for wipers or a cloth to get off splatted 
flies.

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scott wrote:
>> Fabric protectors (like Scotchgard) and water repellants have been 
>> available
>> for ages (that's why people wax their cars), nothing "nano", just regular
>> technology marketed under a hype branding. Also, not all (red) liquids 
>> are
>> adhesive - depends on surface tension and cohesivity (mercury won't 
>> "stick",
>> for instance).
> 
> Yep, it really does depend on what liquid they used.  I used to have a 
> set of marker pens for measuring the stickyness of surfaces (I forget 
> what the scale was, but they were numbered 1-50 or something).  The 1 
> was like mercury, it would stick to nothing (not even normal paper) and 
> would always form blobs.  The 20-30 would mark and stick to pretty much 
> anything (like a permanent marker).  We were using them when we had 
> problems with print not sticking very well to plastic wrap.  They could 
> have easily used a liquid like I had in my marker pen #1 and it would 
> pretty much "run off" of anything you put in it.
> 
> One of the most interesting uses of "nanotech" would be to keep your car 
> windscreen clean, without the need for wipers or a cloth to get off 
> splatted flies.

Indeed, and such coatings already exist in certain applications.  For 
example, the application of TiO2 (titanium dioxide) on glass to create a 
surface that is "self cleaning".  It's described as nano technology 
because of the scale of the reaction that takes place and the thickness of 
the coating, even though it's not nano technology in the sci fi 
tiny-machines sense that most people think of.

Lance.

thezone - thezone.firewave.com.au

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"Bill Pragnell" <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote

> Most nanotech is just particles at the moment, or nanoscale features on
> normal substrates. I think. Fullerenes count too, like buckyballs or
> buckytubes. There's all sorts of novel applications but it's mainly just
> paints and coatings at the moment. I think actual machines are quite a
> way off yet...

That's the bottomline. What's now called nano-science used to be known as
colloidal science (or in the other case, just solid state technology). Any
small molecule technically qualifies as a nano-particle as well. The
nano-science, as originally intended, hasn't come to fruition yet.

Post a reply to this message

somebody wrote:
> "Bill Pragnell" <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote
> 
>> Most nanotech is just particles at the moment, or nanoscale features on
>> normal substrates. I think. Fullerenes count too, like buckyballs or
>> buckytubes. There's all sorts of novel applications but it's mainly just
>> paints and coatings at the moment. I think actual machines are quite a
>> way off yet...
> 
> That's the bottomline. What's now called nano-science used to be known as
> colloidal science (or in the other case, just solid state technology). Any
> small molecule technically qualifies as a nano-particle as well. The
> nano-science, as originally intended, hasn't come to fruition yet.

Yah. Tiny machines swimming through bloodstreams etc is probably better 
described as nano-engineering.

Post a reply to this message

"scott" <sco### [at] laptopcom> wrote in message 
news:47134441$1@news.povray.org...


> One of the most interesting uses of "nanotech" would be to keep your car 
> windscreen clean, without the need for wipers or a cloth to get off 
> splatted flies.

    Well, yes, good one, but I would say that one of the most useful would 
be 'anti glare'. The glare from a windscreen when the sun is low(ish) is 
certainly blinding and dangerous.

    ~Steve~



>
>

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Bill Pragnell wrote:
> Most nanotech is just particles at the moment,

So what distinguishes it from chemicals?  Why isn't scotch-guard 
"nano-tech"?

> I think actual machines are quite a way off yet...

They made working electric motors the size of logic gates some 10+ years 
ago. I don't know if that counts, but I imagine it has advanced since then.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

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scott wrote:
> One of the most interesting uses of "nanotech" would be to keep your car 
> windscreen clean, without the need for wipers or a cloth to get off 
> splatted flies.

That's called "Rain-X".  Go out and buy some. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

Post a reply to this message

St. wrote:
>     Well, yes, good one, but I would say that one of the most useful would 
> be 'anti glare'. The glare from a windscreen when the sun is low(ish) is 
> certainly blinding and dangerous.

And polarized sunglass lenses don't do for you? :-)

Really, something that would cut light that's perpendicular to the 
windshield would be cool. Like the larry niven blue-sun goggles.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

Post a reply to this message

> And polarized sunglass lenses don't do for you? :-)
>
> Really, something that would cut light that's perpendicular to the 
> windshield would be cool. Like the larry niven blue-sun goggles.

It would probably be illegal though.  Most countries have strict 
requirements about the % of light that is transmitted through the front 
windscreen and the front side windows.  AFAIK the specifications are not 
detailed enough to deal with polarised light, but simply adding a polariser 
would likely reduce the transmittance enough to fail the tests.

A further idea is to replace the screen with a LCD panel that has just one 
huge passive pixel (=very cheap to make).  You automatically get polarisers 
that will cut out any glare (assuming you align them correctly) and then you 
just need a light sensor to dim the view when it is very bright - no need 
for sunglasses!

Post a reply to this message

>> One of the most interesting uses of "nanotech" would be to keep your car 
>> windscreen clean, without the need for wipers or a cloth to get off 
>> splatted flies.
>
> That's called "Rain-X".  Go out and buy some. :-)

Oh ok, I'll see if we have some equivalent here.  First I need to go and get 
my car washed though :-)

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> Bill Pragnell wrote:
>> Most nanotech is just particles at the moment,
> 
> So what distinguishes it from chemicals?  Why isn't scotch-guard 
> "nano-tech"?

I'm not sure how scotch-guard works, and I think 'chemical' is a bit of 
a nebulous term. I always thought nanotech refers to discrete artifacts 
smaller than a micron (i.e., whose size is best measured in nanometres). 
Wikipedia have quite a good run-down.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanotechnology

>> I think actual machines are quite a way off yet...
> They made working electric motors the size of logic gates some 10+ years 
> ago. I don't know if that counts, but I imagine it has advanced since then.

I don't know anything about that. I think I heard of a demonstration 
some time ago, but what would you use it for?

Post a reply to this message

"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:47141eac$1@news.povray.org...
> St. wrote:
>>     Well, yes, good one, but I would say that one of the most useful 
>> would be 'anti glare'. The glare from a windscreen when the sun is 
>> low(ish) is certainly blinding and dangerous.
>
> And polarized sunglass lenses don't do for you? :-)

   Well, yes, they would be ok, apart from I don't like wearing sunglasses. 
I dunno, I haven't tried any on for years now.

    ~Steve~



> -- 
>   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
>     Remember the good old days, when we
>     used to complain about cryptography
>     being export-restricted?

Post a reply to this message

Bill Pragnell wrote:
> I'm not sure how scotch-guard works, and I think 'chemical' is a bit of 
> a nebulous term.

Uh, less nebulous than "nanotech" I think.

> I always thought nanotech refers to discrete artifacts 
> smaller than a micron (i.e., whose size is best measured in nanometres). 

You mean, like, molecules? :-)

I always thought nanotech had to be "devices", like it says on the wiki. 
I.e., it isn't nanotech if you don't know the physical shape of the 
molecule. (Necessary but not sufficient.)

> I don't know anything about that. I think I heard of a demonstration 
> some time ago, but what would you use it for?

To demo that you have the technology to create such things!

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

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Darren New wrote:
> scott wrote:
>> One of the most interesting uses of "nanotech" would be to keep your 
>> car windscreen clean, without the need for wipers or a cloth to get 
>> off splatted flies.
> 
> That's called "Rain-X".  Go out and buy some. :-)

Rain-X doesn't really keep it clean, it just makes water (and snow, for 
that matter) sheet off it :)

I use it here - it's great none-the-less ;)

Lance.

thezone - thezone.firewave.com.au

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Darren New wrote:
> Bill Pragnell wrote:
>> I'm not sure how scotch-guard works, and I think 'chemical' is a bit 
>> of a nebulous term.
> 
> Uh, less nebulous than "nanotech" I think.
> 
>> I always thought nanotech refers to discrete artifacts smaller than a 
>> micron (i.e., whose size is best measured in nanometres). 
> 
> You mean, like, molecules? :-)
> 
> I always thought nanotech had to be "devices", like it says on the wiki. 

Not necessarily.  Carbon nanotubes are a good example of nanotechnology 
where initially you'd think that it wouldn't be called a "device".  If 
something is just a physical structure, can it be a device?

That brings up the question of what is and isn't a device: Is a device 
only something with moving parts?  If it is, then what about a laser? 
Most people would consider it a device.  It's a bit of a grey area.  Is it 
a device if it has no moving parts but performs a function by altering 
things on/around it?  Well, then a simple TiO2 nano coating on glass could 
be considered a device, and so could a nanolaser even if, again, it's just 
a physical structure (in this case a nanowire attached to a substrate).

So, a lot of surfaces and physical structures can be considered devices, 
and, if their details are of a nano scale, would fall under the term 
nanotechnology.

Lance.

thezone - thezone.firewave.com.au

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Lance Birch wrote:
> Not necessarily.  Carbon nanotubes are a good example of nanotechnology 
> where initially you'd think that it wouldn't be called a "device".  If 
> something is just a physical structure, can it be a device?

Well, I'd say a pipe is more a device than the water flowing thru it. It 
may not be very active, but as I say, I consider "nanotech" to be based 
on the physical structure of the item rather than the chemical behavior 
as such.  I.e., if it's a nanotube because it's cylindrical and hollow, 
it's "nano". If it's a nanotube because it's made out of carbon, then 
that's chemistry.

I don't think the reality of the objective world is such that you can 
separate the two concepts reliably. Things are what they are, and 
chemical reactions happen because of the shapes of the molecules. So 
it's kind of a pointless discussion that nobody is "right" about.

Feynman, the guy who invented the concept as such, described nanotech as 
essentially that which you used nanotools to build. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

Post a reply to this message

Lance Birch wrote:
> Rain-X doesn't really keep it clean, it just makes water (and snow, for 
> that matter) sheet off it :)

It takes most of the grime with it, tho. :-)  But yah, it's not what 
Scott was talking about, but I figured he'd want to know.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

Post a reply to this message

>> Rain-X doesn't really keep it clean, it just makes water (and snow, for 
>> that matter) sheet off it :)
>
> It takes most of the grime with it, tho. :-)  But yah, it's not what Scott 
> was talking about, but I figured he'd want to know.

Yes, useful input here.  I think I recall seeing similar, but they were 
advertised very badly and I just dismissed them as "rubbish" that would 
never work very well.  I will look out for a bottle to try out.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> Bill Pragnell wrote:
>> I always thought nanotech refers to discrete artifacts smaller than a 
>> micron (i.e., whose size is best measured in nanometres). 
> 
> You mean, like, molecules? :-)

'Artifact' in the sense that it's an artificial structure that couldn't 
occur naturally. In general I wouldn't describe molecules as artifacts. 
I guess buckyballs and buckytubes count as both as they do occur in 
nature, albeit rarely. And I wouldn't class a single crystal as a 
'molecule' either. :P

I guess it is a bit of a grey area.

>> I don't know anything about that. I think I heard of a demonstration 
>> some time ago, but what would you use it for?
> 
> To demo that you have the technology to create such things!

Publicity; like a nanoscale ad poster... I guess it makes people aware 
of it. They'll be bringing out a low carbon-emission version next just 
to get the climate change crusaders off their backs.

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