What is it about?
VitreOx™ is an anti-fog optical coating that is highly transparent, that is distortion free and that transmits 98% of light . It can be directly applied on lenses, scope and any glass or polymer surfaces. Various formulations of the coating and processing yield temporary, semi- permanent and permanent anti-fog coatings on lenses, surfaces and medical devices. VitreOx™ INSTANTANEOUSLY eliminates fogging, by changing how water droplets behave on the surface, by producing a super hydrophilic surface. Instead of visible droplets (water beads), a uniform, flat, “wet sheet” instantly grows on the surface, resulting in a smooth, droplet-free, transparent surface without optical distortions instead of fogged lenses. Thus, VitreOx™ eliminates light scattering and the distortion of your vision by eliminating water droplets. Thus, VitreOx™ does not rely on heating, or evacuation to eliminate fogging.
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Why is it important?
Surgical scopes, loupes, microscope and endoscope lenses are made from borosilicate and become opaque or “fog” during surgery, due to optical refraction by coalescing droplets from bodily fluids. Fluids evaporate inside warm body cavities during surgery and then condense on inorganic surfaces. “Fogging” interferes with surgeons’ vision and increase (1) duration of surgery by up to 40%, (2) trauma to patients via infection from repeated wiping, and (3) costs from time lost for other procedures. In this work, condensation is modelled at the nano-scale to control it via adsorbed molecular films. First, water affinity, or hydroaffinity, of glass, silicone, acrylic, polycarbonate and silica lenses, are analyzed. Simple molecular models for hydroaffinity, water condensation, hydration and adsorption of long chain polymeric gels in emulsions and on Si-based surfaces are combined. Next, a hydrophilic gel is optimized using bio-compatible visco-elastic colloids into a uniquely stable adsorbate emulsion, VitreOx™ , synthesized using FDA approved components. Surgery simulations at T=38°C in vitro and animal clinical trials in vitro reach a success rates of 100% in preventing fogging through 500+ comparative tests, and animal trials.
Perspectives
In this paper we explain first the key concept behind using super hydrophilic surfaces instead of hydronic surfaces.This is our first article on our VitreOx™ anti-fog developed for Class I and Class II FDA medical applications. We filed several patents since 2013 on the coating. Now we describe the physics principles behind VitreOx™ and its successful testing in animal trials. VitreOx™ INSTANTANEOUSLY eliminates fogging, by changing how water droplets behave on the surface, by producing a super hydrophilic surface. Instead of visible droplets (water beads), a uniform, flat, “wet sheet” instantly grows on the surface, resulting in a smooth, droplet-free, transparent surface without optical distortions instead of fogged lenses. Thus, VitreOx™ eliminates light scattering and the distortion of your vision by eliminating water droplets. Thus, VitreOx™ does not rely on heating, or evacuation to eliminate fogging.
Prof. Nicole Herbots
Arizona State University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Super-Hydrophilic, Bio-compatible Anti-Fog Coating for Lenses in Closed Body Cavity Surgery: VitreOxTM – Scientific Model, In Vitro Experiments and In Vivo Animal Trials, MRS Advances, January 2016, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1557/adv.2016.474.
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