In a press release Peach, a Swiss company for office products and subsidiary of 3T Supplies AG, announced the availability of PA109, a liquid crystal technology that makes displays as hard as sapphire, it says. According to the press release, “The liquid glass, which is applied with a cloth, forms within a few minutes an ultra-hard nano-coating which protects the display and glass surfaces, starting from smartphones over tablets and notebooks up to camera lens or watch glasses not only from scratches, but also the visibility of fingerprints are emphatically reduced.”
Peach Liquid Crystal Screen Protector
The coating forms “an invisible, water-repellent seal with a hardness of 9H (according to the international Mohs scale), which protects the display significantly against any kind of scratches”. It also reduces the visibility of fingerprints and is water repellent. After application the coating forms within a few minutes and leaves a white residue that is wiped off. After 10h the coating reaches its full strength. They also have a YouTube video available where they describe how this product makes your smartphone almost indestructible (including driving over it with a car). Nevertheless, at least they say in the video that the coating “reduces micro scratches significantly” not that it prevents them.
Analyst Comment
As it seems the company is on a marketing campaign that is attracting customers but providing very little technical detail. For starters, there is a pretty significant difference between Liquid Crystals and Liquid Glass. From the description and the video it seems pretty clear that they are describing a form of water glass (sodium silicate) that forms a nano layer on the surface when the solvent (water or alcohol) evaporates. This is very different from the kind of liquid crystal layer that is used inside the LCD cell.
Even if we give them the benefit of the doubt that they really do not understand the difference, the description should be considered slightly misleading.
The rest of the properties such hydrophobic and oleophobic behavior of the coating fits well with the well known water glass coating properties. In addition a water glass coating will prevent and hide micro scratches, however it will not turn the glass screen into a sapphire screen. The surface coating will act as a very thin sacrificial coating that protects the original screen from scratches.
A similar (or maybe even the same material) has been available from Liquid Glass Nanotech for quite some time and was shown at the MWC in 2015. As an added benefit, these coatings have also antimicrobial properties that maybe very attractive for all those germaphobes out there. (NH)
