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Winter Driving Safety: Windshields That Repel Ice

14 December 2000

Winter Driving Safety: Windshields That Repel Ice - No More Scraping or Defrosting

    ROCHESTER, N.Y., Dec. 14 The windshield in your next car
could have a new ice-repelling system that prevents ice from ever forming.  No
more scraping and no more defrosting; that's the vision of the not-so-distant
future from Torvec, Inc.(OTC Bulletin Board: TOVC), innovators in new
automotive technologies .
    Keith Gleasman, President of Torvec, said, "I live in Rochester, New York,
very close to Buffalo and with the same infamous winters.  I can't begin to
count how many freezing mornings I've stood outside scraping ice from my
windshield.  When I heard that an ice physicist from Dartmouth College had
discovered the secret to breaking ice's grip without heat, I jumped at the
chance to add it to cars."
    Ice sticks to things by forming an unbreakable but barely perceptible
electric bond.  Reverse the electric charge and ice won't stick.
    Dartmouth College has licensed this breakthrough discovery to BF Goodrich
for airplane and marine applications, such as de-icing airplane wings, and to
Torvec for land-based transportation such as cars, trucks and railway boxcars.
    Torvec is rushing to market with an invisible windshield polymer that will
repel winter ice from the glass surface.  The polymer conducts a low voltage
current, comparable to that used to run cars'clocks.  The windshield will
repel ice without heat, without defrosting and without chipping or scraping.
    Windshields are manufactured by sandwiching "tinting glaze" between two
layers of tempered glass. Torvec's anti-icing polymer will be part of the
micro-thin filling, invisible to the naked eye.
    "Every year eleven million windshields are replaced, and I'd bet a few
million of those were cracked from drivers chipping at ice, pouring hot water
on windshields, or getting hit from ice flying off a truck.
Torvec's ice-repelling system will be made for replacement windshields and new
automobiles, will save time and money, and improve transportation safety,"
added Mr. Gleasman.
    Ice physicist Dr. Victor Petrenko at Dartmouth College discovered the
physical underpinnings of this technology.  The surface of a piece of ice has
an unusual electrical charge; molecules tend to line up in the same direction.
Either the protons are facing out, giving the ice surface a positive charge,
or the protons face inward, buried in the ice, giving the surface a negative
charge.  When ice touches another surface, like a tongue or a windshield, it
causes an opposite charge in the other surface.  Because oppositely charged
molecules attract, the two surfaces stick together.  This accounts for most of
the adhesion of ice to another surface.  Conversely, breaking the bond between
ice and another surface is a simple as neutralizing the surface through a
positive or negative charge.
    Dartmouth has a policy of licensing its technology to one large company
and one entrepreneurial smaller company, and because of this policy Torvec was
able to successfully secure its license.

    This press release contains forward-looking statements based on current
expectations subject to the risks and uncertainties outlined in Torvec's
10-KSB dtd. 3/31/00 and Registration Statement dtd. 10/18/00, and the
Company's ability to finance further development of the ice-repelling
technology, Torvec's ability to successfully launch the product, and its
acceptance by consumers and the automotive and transportation industries.

    Torvec, Inc., based in Rochester, New York, is a developer of highly
advanced automotive technologies including the FTV(TM) tracked vehicle and the
patent protected Infinitely Variable Transmission, constant velocity joint
with spherical gearing, lightweight hydraulic pump and motor assembly, and
de-icing and ice traction technology.