Washing is no longer required

Special nanocoating allows the fabric to be cleaned under the influence of light

DailyTechInfo based on RMIT materials: No more washing: nano-enhanced textiles clean themselves with light

The process of washing things, despite the high degree of automation, even in domestic conditions, remains quite a troublesome business. A person needs to load a dose of powder or liquid into the washing machine, put dirty clothes in it, remove the washed things, disassemble and hang them to dry. However, thanks to the work of researchers from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Melbourne (RMIT), in the future, the washing procedure will no longer be necessary. The nanocoating developed by Australian researchers allows the fabric to self-clean whenever light rays hit its surface. 

Imagine that you hang a dirty shirt near the window, and after a while it becomes clean, or go out for a walk on a sunny day in a not very fresh T-shirt, which sparkles with crystal purity upon return. And these miracles are created by nanostructures made of copper and silver, specially grown on the surface of the fabric fibers.

Cotton fabric with nanocoating at magnification of 200 and 150,000 times – VM.

When photons of light from a source of natural or artificial origin fall on the surface of tiny metal structures, free "hot" electrons with sufficiently high energy arise in them. These electrons, moving at high speed, collide with molecules of organic substances and create micro-explosions that split these molecules. This technology can remove or significantly reduce the green trace of grass left on the sports uniform from a fall during a football match, but it is not yet able to cope with the traces of ink left on clothes after replacing the cartridges in the printer.

Nanostructures on the surface of fabric fibers are grown by successively immersing ordinary fabric in several different solutions. The entire growing process is carried out in about 30 minutes, after which even very significant pollution is cleared in just six minutes of exposure to bright sunlight.

The researchers claim that the nanocoating technology is very simple, absolutely harmless to humans and can be used on an industrial scale. This is what gives this technology advantages over other similar technologies for self-cleaning of fabrics and surfaces.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  01.04.2016