The first time I saw this done was with a liquid named Floristate or something like that, by some Australians who were experiencing problems running it through a coil cooled by acetone and dry ice because it kept gelling up. Problem is that the stuff cost hundreds of dollars a gallon. Later we saw that the same thing could be done with a variety of different mineral oils, even vegetable oil. That had it's own problems, but a pure transparent mineral oil seemed to work OK for a while. Like the mineral oil that is used for high vacuum pumps. I don't know how much 3m Novic costs, apparently it is a unique synthesized fluid, but I do know that there are any number of corporations that will sell you what is essentially mineral oil for huge bucks, like the fluids used to cool the old types of transformers on power poles. The ones that explode every once in a while with a beautiful deep orange fireball. I guess the problem for all such systems is cost and maintenance per performance gain. I suppose if you are the kind of person who loves to tinker around and that in itself is mostly what you enjoy, then there is all kinds of stuff you can do that doesn't really make sense for a gamer in the real world.
Personally I think this cicada wing thing is gonna be great if it happens, maybe they can nanofacture it as a matrix that is deposited right on the silicon and eliminate the need for thermal paste inside the lid, by having the lid the top of such a little chamber where this effect takes place. Then the only grease would be what you put between the lid and the heat-sink on your cooler.
And after my recent experience with a LEPA 240 all in one watercooler destroying my computer by leaking, and the ill response of Enermax, I am back to air, and this new development seems like it would work really well with air.
I found this interesting:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1209583/3m-novec-7000-group