This is the first in a series of posts on the subject of self cleaning glass surfaces or easy to clean glass coatings.
ABSTRACT
There are many companies around the world providing glass surface treatments today. Many of them simply sell a private labeled brand (someone else’s product) and only a few own their intellectual property, meaning that there are only a few companies that have truly done enough research and development to come up with their own product with distinct and valid claims, along with a solid track record, to support what they promote.
The purpose of these posts are to provide clarity to the public with regards to the core characteristics of glass surface treatments that one should be aware of (to make a smart choice) but more specifically with regards to hydrophobic (water repellent) or the so-called easy-to-clean glass coatings. The Q&A format has been chosen for simplification purposes and in order to explain in a more colloquial manner to any end-user rather than to an expert in this related field.
Added-Value Functions: Core Properties of Easy-to-Clean Coatings
How hydrophobic is the surface and why do you need to know
As its name denotes, one of the first and foremost core properties of any hydrophobic coating that one should know is precisely how hydrophobic, or water repellent, the coating makes the surface.
Why? Simply because the more hydrophobic the surface becomes, the easier it will be for the treated surface to be cleaned. It works like a Teflon® cooking pan and the difference in cleaning a Teflon® coated pan vs. a non-Teflon® one.