“Ultra Ever Dry” superhydrophic nanotechnology

If you read down through the comments, there are a couple of scary suggestions about potential toxicity of this stuff.

Remember: the US government does not require any toxicity testing before a product can be sold in stores. I won't be surprised when these sorts of treatments are found to be toxic and ultimately banned or seriously restricted.

It would never be banned for toxicity. Oil based primer is toxic. JB Weld is toxic. Doesn't make things illegal or ban worthy. All they have to do is put a disclaimer saying not to apply it to personal use items. Kind of surprising they displayed it being used on shoes and gloves, that could get them in trouble. If it were highly toxic I don't think any right minded person would put it on anything worn.

In a few months we will start to hear about settlements with construction workers who put this stuff on their boots and gloves and their skin started to rot off.

Is this the new name for neverwet?

Lots of chemicals have been banned for toxicity. The key question is how toxic it is and whether or not it bioaccumulates.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt1TfPuTzq0

Someone had the guts to put it on their finger apparently.

Ultra Ever Dry is just one of many "superhydrophobic nano coatings" that has become conspicuous in the last two or three years. There is also Ceracoat, Nanopool, NeverWet, NanoProtect, Uripel, Aculon, Nano Diamond Shield, and many others. Their low-budget websites all look more or less the same, with videos that begin with "What you are about to see is real!" or "Prepare to be amazed!" These companies all give an impression that they originally sold magnetic healing bracelets and male enhancement pills and they decided to capitalize on an emerging market.

Popular media "journalists" are in the habit of just pasting up marketing content from these websites as though the claims were fact, and calling it "news". Almost none of these products have actually come to market. The German product Nanopool, which continues to be advertised as a silica-based spray-on coating, was sold for a few months all over Europe, and sickened hundreds of consumers. Regulators in every country where it was sold had it pulled from the shelves. German regulators tested the contents from several aerosol bottles acquired at retail stores (for 30 euros each). The bottles contained ethanol, water, and some industrial solvents, but no silica. The company insisted that the absence of their magical nano-ingredient was just a mistake involving a small batch of bottles.

The fact that there is just enough real science to make their claims sound plausible is not evidence that they actually have a product or that it actually does what they say. All good snake oil has just enough real science to be plausible. Among the glut of superhydrophobic coatings companies that are currently advertising, there might be one or two that aren't scams, but I'm not ready to invest any money finding out.

I think you can already buy snake oil on Amazon.com.

–B.G.–

> The bottles contained ethanol, water, and some industrial solvents, but no silica.
> The company insisted that the absence of their magical nano-ingredient was just a
> mistake involving a small batch of bottles.

Homeopathic waterproofing?

Cheers

Herb,
Noticed the other day that when tap water is run on the fabric portion of an old Danner 452 boot, the water just ran away from, and was strongly repelled by the material. Even after several minutes under the faucet, not the slightest trace of moisture remained on the fabric. But now I can't remember which common spray I used on the boot. Tectron? CampDry? ScotchGuard? Atsko? No idea.

So I can't see what's really new here, but hope that none of that stuff got onto the bottom of the boot in the video, unless someone wanted to go skating without ice.

Colin,
Thank you for following up on this and sorting out the info that's available. Without that, we'll probably be seeing this stuff on BPL until he** freezes over.

A lot of these superhydrophobic coating is silica based. The effect is convincing in the lab. There are at least twenty peer-reviewed technical papers on that topic. But the real problem is the DURABILITY issue. The coating can be easily compromised, say, by drops of acid rain. Therefore, although people proposed that the coatings can be used on car's windshield, the fact is after 4 hours exposed to ambient, the nanostructured coating changes, for example, 1) eroded by acid rain, or 2) wiped off by wiper blade, or 3) wiped off by your finger tip or a smashing bug at merely 20 mph. So you go back to your good ole wiper again.