Yourlastname 1

Student Name Professor Name Subject 8 May 2000 Scientific Writing The problem of development of water-repellent materials is of high interest for the scientists because such materials may be effectively utilized in construction, clothing industry and consumer electronics. The latest advance on this topic is described in the article Extremely Water- and Oil-Repellent Material Developed from Sci-News.com web-site. The article mentions the recently published research by the group of nanotechnologists from the University of Twente, who managed to create a surface that repels water and oil drops at an extreme scale. Similarly to the other liquid-repelling materials, it is covered by the grid of tiny pillars. Water or oil drops that contact with the surface stay on the top of the pillars and keep spherical form. However, existing materials allowed liquid drops to fall between pillars when they started to evaporate and become smaller. Dutch scientists have managed to solve this problem by modification of the edges of the pillars, so the new material always stays water- and oil-free. Author of the article concludes that the newly developed surface may be used to protect screens of mobile devices from dirt. I think that the most valuable knowledge that can be derived from this article is the basic concept of design of liquid-repelling materials. However, many questions emerged while reading this article. First of all, author did not describe the actual technology which is employed to construct a surface with tiny pillars on it. It can happen that such technology is extremely expensive or currently it does not allow mass production which means that we would not see practical applications of new liquid-repelling materials any soon. Secondly, the physical properties of the developed material are not described. It is unclear whether it is durable enough or whether it may be manufactured transparent so that it can be applied on screens of mobile devices or for windows coating. Finally, author did not mention any other possible applications

Yourlastname 2

of the new material apart of consumer electronics. Commenting on the other possible applications such as water-repelling fabric or oil-repelling tabletops would make this article better. All in all, although I found the information in the article quite interesting, in my belief author could have added more details to make it more clear.

Yourlastname 3

Works Cited de Lazaro, Enrico. Extremely Water- and Oil-Repellent Material Developed. SciNews.com., 18 Sep. 2012, Web., 18 Sep. 2012. <http://www.scinews.com/othersciences/nanotechnologies/article00595.html>