As temperatures drop, you may have come across a series of social tips on how to quickly demist car windows on cold mornings. Among these, the “remedy of cork stopper” which, if positioned on the dashboardit would be able to completely absorb the humidity in the passenger compartment and prevent i glasses of our car they fog up.
But does it really work? In reality, not only is there no scientific data to support this thesis, but the alleged “trick” It just doesn’t make sense from a scientific point of view. In short, it is a real false myth.
Think about it: if cork had a high capacity to absorb humidity, why would it ever be used to stop bottles? The last feature we want a cork to have, in fact, is to facilitate exchanges between the inside and outside of the bottle. On the contrary, we want a cork to do a good job of insulating, which is why cork is used to make wine corks.
Far from being a good moisture absorber, cork is, in fact, a material waterproof. This is because its main component is la suberina substance hydrophobic (i.e. which repels water) which at a microscopic level is arranged in numerous cork stratified lamellae. This structure serves the plants precisely to avoid exchanges between inside and outside.
In short, cork is mainly made up of a water-repellent materialso we don’t expect it to be a good moisture absorber. If it were, we would see it get soaked if left in a humid room, which it doesn’t. Even by placing a cork under the water flowing from a tap we discover that it is not exactly a champion inattract water. Although it still has a porous structure made up of approximately 80% air, therefore suitable for trapping part of the water vapor contained in the atmosphere, it’s not very credible that a single cap can absorb significant quantities of humidity, especially in a particularly humid air situation such as in the passenger compartment of a car, where the vapor is condensing in contact with the glass.
It is no coincidence, therefore, that there are no scientific studies which confirm this presumed ability of cork to prevent the formation of condensation on car windows.
At this point, the only real remedy for breaking the car windows is to turn on the air conditioning, initially warm and then gradually raise the temperature. Air conditioning, being very dry, lowers the relative humidity of the air; the hot air will then favor the evaporation of condensation and the ability of the air in the passenger compartment to contain water vapor before reaching saturation.
