Fabric of the Future Will Clean Itself

Latest

Two scientists have developed a chemical coating for fabric that causes it to clean and deodorize itself when exposed to sunlight. This means that unless the world is too polluted to occupy in the future, we’ll never have to do laundry again. Now, let’s all twirl around in our dream kitchens!

The wonderfabric’s secret lies in the chemical titanium dioxide, which is already used in products that clean themselves, like odor free socks and stain resistant tiles. In trials utilizing a combination of the aforementioned stain fighting chemical, nitrogen, silver, and iodine, cotton fabric soaked in the solution was able to dissolve an orange stain using just the power of the sun and its own chemical pluck. The solution didn’t wash out and didn’t need to be replenished in order for the fabric it coated to retain its stain resistant characteristics.

Results of the successful trial will be published in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, which I’m sure you can pick up at the same newsstand that sells all those magazines about the Kardashians.

Cotton fabric cleans itself when exposed to ordinary sunlight [PhysOrg]

 
Join the discussion...