Researchers from Ontario, Canada have developed a new technology to help protect your windshield from damages. ExoShield is a thin plastic film that is applied to the top of windshields that safeguards them much like the protective coating on cell phones.
ExoShield is only .13 millimeters thick and increases the impact resistance by six times.
“The general principle is glass is scratch resistant, but it’s brittle, it breaks. Polymers like PET or polycarbonate are impact resistant, but they scratch very easily,” Khanjan Desai, Alchemy co-founder, said. “What Alchemy is doing is we’ve developed a nanocomposite that’s allowing us to improve the scratch-resistance performance of a material like PET, so that it can be used in applications where we couldn’t use it before.”
Desai has teamed up with Chong Shen, a former classmate from the University of Waterloo in Waterloo Ontario, to create Alchemy, the company responsible for ExoShield. The two gentlemen first created a technology to help windshields from frosting called NeverFrost, but the application needed to be stronger to be used on cars.
“Ideally, as we get this [ExoShield] coating to be better and better, we would like to reintegrate the anti-frost coating technology in there as well,” Desai said.
The plastic material used for ExoShield is able to be stretched over the windshield without interfering with visibility, something that is very important when driving.
ExoShield is currently available in 25 cities in the United States and Canada. The goal is to be available in 300 dealers by the end of the year.
