Truly durable repellent coating with RepelShell
NBD Nanotechnologies, the surface “wettability” experts, today introduced an ultra durable omniphobic coating that enhances the water and oil repellency of automotive windshields, windows, sensors, and cameras. NBD’s patented RepelShell™ for Glass is the latest in the company’s line of customized solutions that make surfaces highly repellent to water, oil, dirt, and chemicals for much longer periods of time.
Wettability reflects the degree of liquid interaction – involving water, oil, dirt, and chemicals – on the surface of products made of glass, metal, plastic, or paint. Manufacturers widely use coatings or additives to enhance or reduce the wettability – i.e., the surface properties – of their products. By precisely altering a product’s wettability, NBD Nano solutions dramatically enhance a product’s characteristics and value.
“The industry has been seeking a repellent coating that offers excellent water repellant performance combined with extended long-term durability. We have achieved this with our RepelShell™ coating,” said Miguel Galvez, CEO at NBD Nano. “The enabling technology to our RepelShell’s durability is our adhesion promoter layer called NanoGlue™. This bonding layer provides substantially increased crosslinking with the glass oxide surface that was previously not possible with existing solutions. While there are dozens of existing hydrophobic glass coatings – as well as research in academia – none of them have provided the long-term life span combined with performance and ease of application.”
NBD Nano’s RepelShell™ for Glass is a molecular nanocomposite that is applied directly to glass surfaces and makes them more water- and oil-repellent. The core technology behind RepelShellTM is a patented polymer blend formulation that combines fluorinated molecules with surface-active elements that transform glass into an ultra-robust omniphobic surface.
The auto industry has long pursued a hydrophobic glass coating that has the durability to last from 3-5 years.
“The advent in autonomous driving has sparked dramatic interest in our durable coating solutions because self-driving cars rely on obstruction-free sensors and camera surfaces” said Galvez. “Self-driving systems function properly only if the car can see and sense where it’s going, so it’s essential that the operating condition of sensors and cameras surfaces remain unobstructed.”