I wonder how recyclable/biodegradable this is, and if we are going to have waterproof oceans in a few years.
this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2023
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My first thought too. I do hope we don’t introduce more nanoplastics into the world for the sake of some unnecessarily high tech clothing.
So, I think I found the original study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41557-023-01346-3, because for some reason these articles never cite the actual studies. What happened to citing sources??
Anyway, apparently they did grew octyltrichlorosilane on silicon wafers. Now, I have no idea what octyltrichlorosilane is, but here is some information I found about it https://www.chemicalbook.com/msds/Octyltrichlorosilane.htm
It seems to be purely a chemical used for research, so this study would be more of a proof of concept, and you would replace the chemical used with something else for production.
Damn I guess I still gotta wipe...
Definitely not. This really will be only for work or specific necessities. We won't randomly start having waterproof general clothing. If it resistant enough, it can and will be reused especially if expensive
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Researchers have created a new type of ultra-thin material that may pave the way to a new era of waterproofing, affecting everything from cooking to transportation.
So finding new, super-water-resistant coatings opens up a range of possibilities for designing more efficient, waterproof machinery in the future.
These materials are made up of an ultra-thin liquid layer of water-resistant molecules, bonded to a solid surface of silicone underneath.
In a new study, published in the journal Nature Chemistry on October 23, researchers from Aalto University in Finland found that these materials are equally water-resistant when the liquid-like molecules are present at a low concentration as they are at a high one.
'Our work is the first time that anyone has gone directly to the nanometer-level to create molecularly heterogenous surfaces,' doctoral researcher Sakari Lepikko, lead author of the study, said in a statement.
The team hopes to continue testing the properties of this exceptionally waterproof material to inform its potential applications better in the future.
The original article contains 430 words, the summary contains 164 words. Saved 62%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!