They’ve been developing it for years, so it’s good news to see that the Pilkington Activ glass — the self-cleaning “eco glass” coated with a film of titanium dioxide — is finally being put to use in commercial development. If you hadn’t seen it before, the Activ glass has two advantages over normal glass: the first is the photocatalytic effect that reacts to sunlight to break down organic dirt, and the second is an enhanced hydrophilic tendency of water running on the glass to form sheets instead of droplets (like Rain-X, for instance). The combination of the two effects means that every time it rains (as I hear it does a lot in UK, where the technology was developed), the outside of the windows clean themselves.
Read [BBC via WorldChanging]
Update: Apparently Pilkington isn’t the first to UK market with this stuff.
