QUOTE(Nissan)
TOKYO (Dec. 2, 2005)-- Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., has developed the worlds first clear paint that repairs scratches on painted car surfaces, including scratches from car-washing machines, off-road driving and fingernails.
Scratch Guard Coat contains a newly developed high elastic resin that helps prevent scratches from affecting the inner layers of a cars painted surface. With Scratch Guard Coat a cars scratched surface will return to its original state anywhere from one day to a week, depending on temperature and the depth of the scratch.
The water-repellant paint also has a higher resistance to scratches compared with conventional clear paints. A vehicle painted with Scratch Guard Coat will have only one-fifth the abrasions caused by a car-washing machine compared with a car covered with conventional clear paint. Scratches from car-washing machines account for the majority of scratches to painted car surfaces.
Scratch Guard Coat is effective for about three years.
Scratch Guard Coat will be applied for the first time on an SUV model that is scheduled for a partial makeover in the near future. The paint will be applied to the cars chassis, bumpers, door mirrors, among other parts.
Nanotech Paint Artical From Canada.comQUOTE(SARAH STAPLES)
German chemists have developed "mood ring"-style paint that changes colour based on the weather.
By fusing flecks of gold onto glass particles several times smaller than viruses, the nanotech paint reacts to shifting humidity, light, heat and cold.
Eventually, the paint could be incorporated into computers to create hard drives running entirely on light. In the nearer term, it's expected to be used to engineer more brilliant car finishes.
The discovery represents a significant advance over traditional pigment-based paints, according to its creators at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, in Potsdam, Germany.
And it's only the latest in a slew of futuristic technologies experts predict will completely transform the act of driving.
"The modern automobile is an amazing piece of technology already, and there are a lot of developments that will make it an even more amazing tool for society's future - better and safer," said Peter Frise, professor of automotive engineering at the University of Windsor, and CEO of AUTO21, a federal Network of Centres of Excellence based at the same university.
Inorganic and organic pigment molecules "oxidize" paint, eating away at its colour as soon as it's exposed to oxygen.
But the new nanotech paint consists of cheap silica spheres decorated with gold dots that act like glue to snap the spheres together into tiny, controllable clusters.
The result is structural colour modelled after the properties of pearls, opals or butterfly wings. Depending on the weather, the clusters cling together or expand, producing unique patterns of infrared and near-infrared light reflection, which are interpreted by the eye as different colours.
The nanotech paint won't lose its lustre and would be inexpensive to manufacture, said Dayang Wang, a physical chemist and leader of the German team.
The drawback so far is that it might make it easier to misplace your car...
