Tag
#titanium dioxide
Every article tagged “titanium dioxide”.
3 articles
Physics
Grind up a peacock feather and the blue disappears. There was never any blue in it
Some of the most intense colours in nature contain no pigment at all. They are produced by structures the size of a wavelength of light — which means the colour is in the geometry, cannot fade, and can be engineered into paint, packaging and banknotes.
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Nanotechnology
Mineral sunscreen used to leave you grey. The chemistry did not change — the particle size did
Zinc oxide and titanium dioxide are the same two compounds in the white cricket-umpire nose paste and in a modern invisible sunscreen. What changed is how big the particles are — and that one variable controls the colour, the protection and most of the safety argument.
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Materials Science
Self-cleaning glass does not repel water. It does the opposite — and that is the whole trick
Everyone assumes a self-cleaning surface is one water bounces off. The self-cleaning glass sold on real buildings works the other way round — water spreads into a sheet. Here is why there are two opposite routes to the same result, which one survives contact with the world, and the number suppliers quote that tells you almost nothing.
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