Science Fiction Dictionary
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

 

Pilkington Activ Glass - The Invisible Squeegee Of Window-Willie

Pilkington Activ glass has a coating of microcrystalline titanium oxide that acts as an "invisible squeegee" to allow the surface to clean itself.

The nano-scale (15 nanometers) coating has two remarkable properties that create the effect:

  • It absorbs sunlight (ultraviolet radiation) - creating a photocatalytic effect on dirt accumulated on the window, breaking it down.
  • It makes the surface of the glass hydrophyllic - rather than beading up (and drying in blotches), water forms a sheet that allows organic dirt particles to flow off and then dries much more cleanly.


(From BBC article)

Pilkington Activ glass reduces the amount of sunlight passing through by only about 5%; the coating is very tough and would require real abrasion like a determined scrubbing with steel wool to take it off. It can greatly reduce the cost of cleaning large commercial buildings (or the windows in your house!). It also eliminates harsh cleaner residue from the environment.

SF fans may recall Window Willie, the window-washing invention from Robert Heinleins 1956 novel The Door Into Summer; the novel describes it as an "electrostatic device" that makes dirt disappear from any polished silica surface. I wonder if the coating would work on other kinds of surfaces?

Read the story at Eco glass cleans itself with Sun. Visit the Pilkington Activ glass website for more information. Thanks to an alert anonymous reader for this story!

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 6/9/2004)

Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )

Related News Stories - (" Material ")

Harvard Metamaterials Change Structure Instantly
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.' - Samuel R. Delany

Nano-Chainmail 2D Mechanically Interlocked Polymer
'Nemourlon armor of reasonable weight resists penetration by most fragments and any bullet that is not both reasonably heavy and fairly high-velocity.' - Jerry Pournelle, 1976.

Goldene - A Two-Dimensional Sheet Of Gold One Atom Thick
'Hasan always pitched a Gauzy - a one-molecule-layer tent, opaque, feather-light, and very tough.' - Roger Zelazny, 1966.

GNoME AI From DeepMind Invents Millions Of New Materials
'...the legendary creativity of our finest human authors pales against the mathematical indefatigability of GNoME.'

 

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

 

 

 

 

Science Fiction Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's   1950's
1960's   1970's
1980's   1990's
2000's   2010's

Current News

Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness?
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'

Heat Waver - The First Ever Combo Solar Collector And Wind Turbine
'...like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'

Tesla 'Fleet Response Agents' Bolster FSD Autonomy
'You hate the whole idea that some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre has got your life... in his hands.'

Mori3 Autonomous Shapeshifting Robot
'My homeland is being threatened by the Replicators. Thus far all attempts to stop them have failed.'

Tesla Seeks 'Tesla Robotaxi' And 'Robobus' Trademarks Ignoring Prior Art
'A robobus had just rolled up to the curb.'

Scary Grid Safety Robots
'The ultimate horror for our paranoid culture...'

Does AI Provide A Way Forward For Talk Therapy
'And there in the next room by the sofa sat a familiar suitcase, that of his psychiatrist Dr. Smile.'

Robotic Barber Programmed With a Number of Styles
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'

Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout!
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'

Caterpillar Electric Mining Loader Not Yet Ready For Moon
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'

Centipede Robots Down On The Farm
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'

Anthropic's Claude AI Creates Legal Citation From Whole Cloth
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'

Students Vie For Lunar Regolith Mining Robot Prize
'About time you got here,' the astronaut said.

'They Erased My Memory' Says Ariana Grande
'...using a neutralizing electronic impulse.'

Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space
'...the Hole is something like a vortex or a whirlpool?'

Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories

Home | Glossary | Invention Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.