Hydrophobic coatings

Sure, it's not a contest, but if they have comparable size and toxicity then we
should be most concerned with the largest exposure. If we are exposed to
one million times more diesel "nano-particles" I'd be more worried about them
than something we will only get small doses of.

 

Well, change the argument if you have to, and sure, you probably should be worried and be doing something about things you're getting a million times more exposure to, but why suck up the advertising of the latest miracle product and use it indiscriminately without knowing the downside? Who says they have comparable size and toxicity? On the one hand you have small particles of soot produced by motor vehicles, and on the other you have a liquid full of nano sized what?

 

I'm not changing the argument, and I agree they deserve suspicion.
I said IF they are of comparable size and toxicity. I don't know if they are;
that's why I asked.

 

I work in shipyards. When a boat is hauled it is powerwashed, sanded or sandblasted. All this antifoul contaminate ends up on the shipyard hardtop. When the wind is up dust storms of antifoul dust whip across the yard , contaminate your mouth and burn your eyes.

What will happen to the shipyard workers who are exposed to nano particles 5 days a week for 20 years.

 

They will be ignored until the companies decide the compensation payouts are
more than implementing safe-guards. Same old story.

 

So, that same company is located here in the town I live in. In addition, there is a long boat race called the Everglades Challenge, 7 days long, obviously thru the everglades here in Florida. My boat is a kayak based trimaran, 19 ft. I am looking for an edge anyway, so I am going over there tomorrow and get a quart of the base coat (30 min dry time) and a quart of the top coat (5 min dry time) and spray the bottom of my hull. The top coat is what gives the abrasion resistance, and I am guessing that only pulling the boat onto a beach or off is the only exposure to abrasion, as water is not all that abrasive. Hope it works.

 

Oh, I misunderstood.

It's odd. Any medicine takes years and years of studies before approval to use on people, any chemical takes years and years of proven damage to people before it's dangers are studied.

 

The sheer number of new chemicals being introduced every year makes it a
formidable task to test for any dangerous interactions, too. It has always
amused me that some medicines are ok as long as you don't eat some foods,
like grapefruit. (Citrus is Ok, just not grapefruit!)

I doubt there will be any real interest in limiting nano-materials for quite
some time. Silicosis has been killing tens of thousands of people every year,
and little has been done to prevent it in some countries. Same with other
fine particulates that are known to cause serious problems but are ignored.

 

That's great. Please keep us posted. Any chance you could coat a small piece and leave it in salt water as a test for bio-growth performance. If you could do that and check it once a week or so and let us know what is growing on it and if the coating helps with either inhibiting bio-growth or facilitating bio-growth removal.

Good luck.

 

I've often wondered what the effects are of man made chemicals, unknown in the natural world, released haphazardly into the environment. Or the effects of two or more of these chemicals of which little is known, once they inadvertently combine in some toxic waste dump or any stream or field. I suppose that's where the idea of Godzilla originated.

I have never trusted too much in the good intentions of humanity when profit and loss are involved.

 

Godzilla was inspired by atomic bombs. My "GODZILLA" is an acronym

I never trust wild, shrill accusations that have no evidence to
support them.

Some strange animal deformities have been blamed on chemicals, but
turned out to be quite natural. For example, three-legged frogs were
found near a chemical plant. Of course, the factory was blamed.
It was later found that a parasite caused the "buds" (which become
legs) of the tadpole to mutate. Birds ate the frogs, which were
not good swimmers and easy to catch. The birds then crapped out the
parasite eggs which, in turn, were eaten by frogs and affected their offspring.
The circle of life was complete in a strangely beautiful way.

 

I can't tell if you're hinting that I'm making wild, shrill baseless accusations. I do do that, but here I'm just sort of wondering and suggesting caution, at least to my mind.

The circle of life really is a wonder. Those ants who cultivate and feed colonies of aphids that produce a fungus that is the ants only food is amazing. Tapeworms and trichinosis operate in the same way as the frog parasite, but I'm not too fond of them. Even though they too have Fathers and Mothers and Sisters and Brothers, I'm not about to invite them over for supper.

Chemicals and deformities bring to mind thalidomide. Agent Orange, DDT.

Recreational drugs like pot can surely bring up baseless accusations, but I do wonder about the chemicals that third world farmers spray on their product to keep bugs and molds from damaging it. DDT is banned in the USA, but not elsewhere. Arsenic makes a wonderful herbicide and insecticide, but I'll pass on smoking it.

I was the grounds keeper at the local school for awhile and Round-Up was one of the nasties I was required to use. I got to reading about it and apparently on the MSDS sheets required by the government, only the dangers of the active ingredients are dealt with. In the case of Round-Up, it uses a surfactant that is an 'inactive' part because it doesn't actually kill the plants, but only allows the poison to penetrate the plants easier. But the surfactant itself is deadly for small forms of animal life at the bottom of the food chain, and is accumulative, but since Round-Up is for killing plants, the fact that the inactive ingredients kill wildlife is irrelevant for MSDS purposes.

A grounds keeping book I had told of all the dangers of the various herbicides and pesticides and fungicides needed for healthy looking golf courses and sports fields, but then proceeded to show how much more deadly for humans plain old gasoline is. That made me think of all the times I've gotten a mouthful while siphoning it. The topic of this thread, the hydrophobic coating, may work wonders as a bottom coating. But these things have the potential of easily penetrating skin and then traveling around and collecting in very handy body parts like brains, livers, kidneys etc. I'm sure the ingredients are a proprietary, industrial secret, like Coca-Cola, but even if they aren't, there is no consensus or much study being done on their side effects.

 

And what is happening to the worldwide population of Bees ?

" Pesticides used in pear orchards wiped out bees in parts of Sichuan in the 1980s. Crops are now pollinated by hand using feather brushes, a laborious process as one bee colony can pollinate up to 300m flowers a day."

 

I believe it's some sort of fungus for the bees.

I think also the worldwide depletion and deformities of leopard frogs in particular was traced to the depletion of the ozone, which is caused by the use of man made chemicals. Apparently frogs are susceptible to radiation.

Now all those statements are up for debate, but it is what I have read or heard here and there. I am no expert or knowledgeable source, but am just parroting what some information I've come across has said.

 

Perhaps. At present in Europe they are looking into pesticides and GM crops as a cause . Still no answer.

What about the connection between salmon fecundity and human birth control pill residue in spawning steams?

http://www.ec.gc.ca/scitech/default.asp?lang=En&n=64B32D19-1

Plastic in the food chain ? Mercury in your tuna ?

Many unforeseen problems in the world.

Its a very good idea to closely examine any manmade compounds released into nature.