MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, MASSACHUSETTS, USA. A new glass coating that has anti-fogging, zwitter-wettability and anti-frosting capabilities. This innovation will greatly benefit windshields in vehicles and even camera lenses. Glass materials can now withstand even the harshest weather conditions.

Extreme weather conditions like fogging and frosting affect the overall performance of glass materials. The involved researchers are Michael F. Rubner, Robert E. Cohen, Hyomin Lee and Maria Alcaraz. Anti-fogging coatings that can absorb water also have the capability to reduce light scattering by film-like condensation have been receiving significant attention by different industries. The main obstacle for this anti-fog coating is that when faced with extreme fogging conditions, the surfaces with this coating tend to frost. Thus, resulting in poor optical performance of the coating. This led the researchers to create a coating that can really endure aggressive weather conditions.

A zwitter-wettable surface is a surface that has the ability to absorb molecular water quickly from the environment while simultaneously appearing hydrophobic to large water droplets. Hydrophobic simply means that the water droplets do not spread extensively on the coating. The coating has water-repelling properties and the large water droplets become flattened droplets. Since the new coating can quickly absorb water molecules, they cannot freeze in the coating.