Photocatalytic Sol-Gel coatings, series production of a new generation of self-cleaning street lighting

摘要

Modern technology constantly demands new materials exhibiting previously unrealizable properties, and materials processing methods, which yield ever smaller devices and a much better performance of the final products. Nanomaterials and their applications in the coating technologies offer new solutions on different substrate materials, they are essentially required and reflect a diversity of technical demands and follow the well-known basics like low costs, high reproducibility, reliability, and long-term stability. Antifog-effects, self-cleaning or easy-to-clean functions, impact resistance, diffusion barriers and other functions are accessible by the use of nanotechnology and their development will be one of the big challenges for the future. In fact, nanomaterials and their applications in the coating technologies are already part of our lives, we can find this kind of materials, for example, in car varnishes, hydrophobic easy-to-clean coatings, impact resistance coatings for glass or diffusion barriers on glass and plastics. The Genthe-X-Coatings GmbH, GXC, has found the way to combine the sol-gel chemistry with the nanotechnology in order to improve the performance of our final products. In this way, new materials have been developed for different applications, like antifog or self-cleaning coatings. The functional antifog materials have a remarkable efficiency even at extreme ambient conditions and the new developed self cleaning coatings show-a very high photocatalytic activity und therefore a high self-cleaning performance.