Rinse — no repeats.
There may be a new invention that could significantly reduce the time spent doing laundry.
Scientists in China have developed a spray-on coating for clothes that stops dirt and stains from sticking to the fabric, meaning they can be cleaned on a simple rinse cycle that doesn’t require detergent.
The study, published in the journal Communications Chemistry, described laundry as a “mundane chore with roots stretching back millennia,” and the spray-on coating can save people time and is also more eco-friendly.
The “self-cleaning fabric coating” would allow for people to wash their clothes in just 18% of the time it normally takes to do laundry, the study found.
It would also be more environmentally friendly since washing machines consume a lot of water and electricity. There is a “significant detergent input” needed to get rid of stains on clothing, which discharges into water sources and can be harmful to aquatic life.
With the new spray-on coating, the release of “detergent and microplastic-laden wastewater is entirely eliminated.”
Researchers claim that the coating “fully eliminates the need for detergents and retains its self-cleaning performance for more than 100 laundering cycles.”
The spray works by fabrics being sprayed with alternating layers of two polymers that bind together. The first is called PDADMAC, which stands for poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride), and the second is PVS, which stands for poly(vinylsulfonic acid). Together, they form a polyelectrolyte multilayer (PEM).
The PEM layers can attract water from its surrounding environment to the fibers of the clothing, effectively forming a barrier that will stop a mess from clinging to the fibers in the first place, enabling “the effective removal of food stains, oily residues, bacteria, and fungi through simple rinsing with tap water.”
Essentially, simply rinsing the clothing item under tap water will wash the dirt away.
The researchers found that “the overall consumption of water, electricity, and time [needed for laundry] is reduced by approximately 82%.”
They also found that the process worked on both synthetic and cotton fabrics and were “health-friendly fabric coatings for direct skin contact.”
Scientists said that the findings could transform how people do laundry, taking it from a “traditional detergent-assisted, multi-step process — comprising one washing cycle and four rinsing cycles — to a single detergent-free rinsing cycle.”
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