Anti-fog glass

Glass fogs up when warm, moist air comes into contact with glass and cools so that thousands of tiny water droplets form on the glass. The droplets scatter light, making oncoming traffic hard to see. Rubner and his research team using Nanotechnology have developed a permanent coating which keeps fog at bay. Their superhydrophillic - water loving - coating is composed of nanoparticles made of silica, the same material that glass is made from, to create a coating with a rough surface, although it looks smooth to the naked eye.The silica particles form layers of tiny pores, each a thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair. The pores attract the tiny droplets of water that make up the foggy surface. Stacked ten to twenty layers thick, with air pockets in between, these pores create what's called a "wicking" effect, which forms the water droplets into a uniform sheet.

Source: newlaunches.comAdded: 8 June 2006