UV photo of the Sun (NASA)
LightActive Intelligent Surfaces™ are composed of the same mineral titanium dioxide that is in transparent cosmetic sunscreens used to prevent sunburn on our skin. The damaging rays of Ultraviolet (UV) light also cause billions of dollars of damage to paints, plastics and textiles exposed to sunlight.
LightActive™ works as a sunscreen on surfaces. The crystals that compose the LightActive Intelligent Surface™ are so small that they do not reflect most visible light, instead they strongly absorb damaging UV energy, particularly dangerous UV-B. Unlike the chemical sunscreens such as oxybenzone, a suspected carcinogen, the benign mineral oxide blockers in LightActive™ are bound to surfaces and do not penetrate the skin barrier.
LightActive™ works by absorbing ultraviolet rays and changing them into small amounts of heat which dissipate quickly without damaging the structure of coated surface, helping reduce degradation to plastics, paints and textiles. The key performance advantage is that LightActive™’s extremely small crystal size provides much more surface area for UV absorption. Depending on the dispersion of the coating, UV light absorption can approach 99% to give potential SPF of 30+.
In addition to protecting all coated surfaces from Ultraviolet light damage, the unique chemistry of LightActive™ provides a corrosion resistant oxide barrier when applied to metals. Through a process of passivation, the mineral nanocrystals of LightActive™ physio-chemically bind to the metal substrate forming a non-reactive surface film that inhibits further corrosion. Even though the LightActive™ layer is very thin, the protection of passivation can be greater than a thicker coating of traditional anti-corrosives such as ecologically troublesome chromates.
LightActive™ is also stable under extreme temperatures, maintaining its beneficial properties even after high temperature exposures, up to 400º C.
The ability to protect a variety of surfaces from UV damage as well as the increase in corrosion resistance are important benefits of our multi-functional smart coating, LightActive™.
