This system sounds relatively simple, but it requires some pretty radical changes to the pixel array behind the screen. Most screens use red, green, and blue LEDs set to different intensities to create a full color palette, but GM’s design added his fourth pixel across the matrix, making it tuned for invisible UV wavelengths.
The surface of the screen has a completely transparent layer of some kind of metal oxide-based photocatalyst (probably titanium dioxide), which has been used before in self-cleaning solar panels and various other applications. .
When exposed to UV light, titanium dioxide goes from hydrophobic to superhydrophilic and begins to attract moisture from the air. This creates a thin layer of water on the surface that begins to oxidize, electrochemically producing free radical molecules that attack the cell walls, cytoplasm and DNA of bacteria, fungi and other organisms.
Effectively, it kills most organic matter on the surface and also breaks down oil residue and other debris. The moisture will bead up and roll off the surface.
All of this works well for self-cleaning windows and solar panels that are exposed to sunlight all day long, but less so for car touchscreens and laptops and tablets that are typically kept indoors. is not.
Hence the extra UV pixels. GM’s idea is to design a fully controllable proximity UV blasting light directly into the screen’s color matrix, ready to initiate the self-cleaning process at any time. You can also manually trigger it if you don’t mind running a miniature tanning bed. Or you can set it to explode silently for a few hours in the middle of the night when no one is watching.
Oddly enough, this innovation may prove more feasible in things like touchscreen laptops than in cars. A photocatalytic coating on the screen and a much simpler UV lamp individually affixed to the bezel or cabin ceiling mount, intended to illuminate the front of the screen directly, could end up being cheaper. Doing it in the car might be fairly easy, but for computers and other devices, doing it from behind a screen might be a better solution.
In any case, this is just a patent at this point, covering the use of the technology not only in automobiles, but also in “computers, mobile devices, televisions, kiosks, automated teller machines and consumer electronics.” Great idea. I look forward to working with you.
Source: United States Patent Office via Autoevolution.
