Sto Lotusan — Biomimicry Paint
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 09.22.05
Recently we were talking about minimal maintenance Keim paints for mineral based surfaces. And last year we were prattling on about clothes that could clean themselves. Well, those two stories now merge into one. Sto are selling a paint for mineral, cement and concrete surfaces that is self cleaning. Using technology developed by German scientist Dr Wilhelm Barthlott, who has dubbed it Lotus-Effect, after studying the phenomenon of water beading on lotus leaf. The resulting paint induces biomimicry by causing rain to ‘pearl off’ sliding down the wall. This is said to reduce the “build-up of micro-organisms (algae, bacteria, fungus) which flourish in damp and dirty conditions.” Thus keeping the facade clean and maintenance free. [see before and after pics in extended post].
Left no Lotusan. Right same building with Lotusan paint
(assuming it's a real photo, not touched up in Photoshop!)
The team at Lotus-Effect are working on a bunch of other projects to commercialise their discoveries. A spray-on for textiles seems on the cards and now they talking about a special plastic sheeting. Always thought plastic was pretty water repellent meself, but ya never know. If only my German was up to it, I might be able to investigate further. Multilingual readers out there can read here. For more on the Lotusan paints visit ::Sto UK (PDF here) and ::Sto Germany
If you ask me, the photo "comparison" is pretty meaningless without more information. Was it a new coat of paint? If so, you'd expect it to look a lot cleaner no matter what kind of paint they used. Also, notice the shadows in the picture: the bright, clean "after" photo was obviously taken on a sunny day while for the "before" photo it was overcast.
I hope this product is as good as they claim, but I'd appreciate some evidence!
This is environmentally friendly/sustainable how? What leeches out of it?
"environmentally friendly/sustainable" products are not only measured by their materials. For example a non-recyclable carbon-fibre framed bicycle uses 'yucky' materials, but is highly eco-beneficial, due to the fossil fool car use it replaces. And a petroleum based Enjo cleaning cloth is certainly not organic or biodegradable, but is highly reusable, has a long life and avoids the need for gallons of toxic cleaning chemicals. To our knowledge nothing leaches out of the Lotusan paint, it simply forms a surface that mimics a lotus leaf, thereby inviting water to have a surface tension of 140 degrees, causing it to stay as a bead, and roll away rather than 'wetting out'. We provide the links so readers can investigate products for themselves.
Hey, cool ideas. I'm a student of Biotechnology and run a site based on biotechnology, and this gives a fitting defination to biotechnology, at least some of the innovations here do. :) Great.