Ultra Ever Dry: Waterproofing Your Life

Royce Tee

2013-71153

Individual Project

Ultra Ever Dry: Waterproofing Your Life

What?! Resists water? Shrugs off mud? Ignores oil? That’s what the newest product from Dalton International Ltd is claiming to do. Ultra Ever Dry is the “revolutionary super hydrophobic coating that repels water and refined oils using nanotechnology”, which actually proves capable of keeping things dry. One has to really see it to believe it.

Ultra Ever Dry is described to be super hydrophobic - referring to its property of resisting water (or maybe being extremely scared of it, it’s one letter away from “super hydrophobia” after all). Anything that has a contact angle of more than 150˚ is considered super hydrophobic, and with this water molecules bounce off at 160˚ - 175˚ - that’s practically gliding! This is done by having the coating having a very rough surface which traps air molecules to it and provides a coating of air. That’s why it’s actually air that resists the water; not the coating. The same goes for being oleophobic: Ultra Ever Dry hates oils as well.

There are two layers applied - a bottom layer to prevent corrosion and act as a primer, and a top layer which interacts with the bottom layer to create the nano-textured surface that creates the “umbrella of air”. Together with the fact that there is a low surface energy, this ensures that the coating does not allow liquids to latch onto the surface.

There are numerous applications of Ultra Ever Dry to your everyday household items. Water is essential for several things to happen - your shirt getting wet, your rooftop freezing over, rust eating away at your machine’s gears, or bacteria surviving on the surface of your shoes. With Ultra Ever Dry, you can prevent all of these things ruining your day!

Unfortunately, the application of Ultra Ever Dry can only be done outdoors as it releases a toxic gas, so doing this to your bathrooms would very much likely result in you suffocating the next time you have to relieve yourself. It also produces a permanent whitish hazy surface, so you won’t be able to see anything through your motorcycle helmets, car windshields and windows, though you never have to wash them anymore.

Nevertheless, though it sounds like something from science fiction, the amazing properties of Ultra Ever Dry are here to stay. In the future, we could imagine this being present in numerous applications to our everyday lives. However, we should also be wary of possible hazards that it may bring, such as the toxic gas released. Who knows? Maybe one day we can’t use this anymore if we found connection with it to global warming.

Hutchinson, Lee, 2013. The Internet-demanded, partially scientific testing of Ultra-Ever Dry (in HD!). http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/03/the-internet-demanded-partially-scientific-testing-of-ultraeverdry-in-hd/. Mar. 9, 2014

Dalton International Ltd, 2010. Nano Technology Coatings. http://www.daltoninternational.co.nz/everdry. Mar. 9, 2014

Shaw, Mark, 2013. Mark Shaw: One Very Dry Demo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5L_vPkorBU#t=278. Mar. 9, 2014