A lot of bad ideas have come from a whisky bottle. But to be fair, some good ideas have been hatched, too. Take for instance a team of chemists at Princeton who realized that whisky dries differently and therefore could be a boon to the paint and coatings industry. These researchers created a whisky mimic using ethanol and water along with a synthetic surfactant and a polymer.
The difference between whisky and coffee drying is a fluid motion known as the Marangoni flow, which essentially stirs a drying droplet. It's good for uniformity.
Check out the short video from Speaking of Chemistry, a production of Chemical & Engineering News, a weekly magazine of the American Chemical Society.
Traci Purdum is Chemical Processing’s senior digital editor. She’s not a whisky fan -- too many bad ideas resulted from her consumption. But she swoons for rum drinks. You can email her at [email protected]
