Can teflon be incorporated into paints, so that you can have objects which don’t get dirty? Take a car-if you had a paint that dirt wouldn’t stick to, washing your car would be a snap. Has anyone tried this?
If you abrade the surface of a block of Teflon (with sandpaper, or whatever) and then rub dirt into it, it’ll stick. Teflon might resist chemical sticking, but you can still embed things in it mechanically – pretty easily, too – Teflon’s notoriously soft. So just because Teflon is “non-stick” doesn’t mean that it’s “non-dirty”.
That’s the way they used to get Teflon to stick to pans and the like, as the Great Master once r4ecorded in a ciolumn – mechanical binding. Of course, soft pure Teflon will rapidly wear or tear off. I think most non-stick surfaces these days are made of something tougher.
Activ glass uses a titanium dioxide nano-scale coating to deactivate dirt and repel water in sunlight. I am sure researchers will be trying to apply this sort of technology to other coatings.
Si
You need to be a bit more clear as to what ‘dirt’ you want to repel.
There are many different types, like dust, pet hair, skin oil from fingers, saliva, food waste, spilled drinks including sweet sticky soda pop to acidic tomato juice to solvent alcoholic drinks, etc.
All of these might be considered ‘dirt’ when on a kitchen wall, but they are quite different from each other. One ingredient that would repel them all seems unlikely.
There’s paint inspired by the Lotus plant, which naturally repels dirt and gunk
http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/18/paint_inspired_by_a_lotus_flower/
I guess you could say it was your dream car.
Teflon is an excellent insulator. It holds electrostatic charge like almost nothing else. If it ever gets any internal charge, it will draw and hold dust like a CRT screen.