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The material is apparently hydrophilic, so it can absorb a lot of water. That means things like algae and gunk will fill the material, rendering it less effecti
by NL807 3y ago
The material is apparently hydrophilic, so it can absorb a lot of water. That means things like algae and gunk will fill the material, rendering it less effective.
- ccooffee 3y agoFrom reading through the supplementary materials for the paper [0], it seems that the authors are aware of this flaw and they found a way to make it hydrophobic. The approach they tested involved soaking the ceramic in a bath with a commercially available fluorosilane [1] that is used to make things superhydrophobic. Fig. S20 in the supplementary materials has a chart that shows the treated ceramic being very good ("solar reflectivity...remains at ~99.0%") but not quite as stellar as the untreated ceramic. [0] https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.adi4725 https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.adi4725 [1] https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/US/en/product/aldrich/667420 https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/US/en/product/aldrich/667420