Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday November 20 2019, @11:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the jokes-write-themselves dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water: Innovative coating could reduce toilet water consumption by half, increase water sustainability

Every day, more than 141 billion liters of water are used solely to flush toilets. With millions of global citizens experiencing water scarcity, what if that amount could be reduced by 50%?

The possibility may exist through research conducted at Penn State, released today (Nov. 18) in Nature Sustainability.

"Our team has developed a robust bio-inspired, liquid, sludge- and bacteria-repellent coating that can essentially make a toilet self-cleaning," said Tak-Sing Wong, Wormley Early Career Professor of Engineering and associate professor of mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering.

In the Wong Laboratory for Nature Inspired Engineering, housed within the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Materials Research Institute, researchers have developed a method that dramatically reduces the amount of water needed to flush a conventional toilet, which usually requires 6 liters.

Co-developed by Jing Wang, a doctoral graduate from Wong's lab, the liquid-entrenched smooth surface (LESS) coating is a two-step spray that, among other applications, can be applied to a ceramic toilet bowl. The first spray, created from molecularly grafted polymers, is the initial step in building an extremely smooth and liquid-repellent foundation.

"When it dries, the first spray grows molecules that look like little hairs, with a diameter of about 1,000,000 times thinner than a human's," Wang said.

While this first application creates an extremely smooth surface as is, the second spray infuses a thin layer of lubricant around those nanoscopic "hairs" to create a super-slippery surface.

Jing Wang, Lin Wang, Nan Sun, Ross Tierney, Hui Li, Margo Corsetti, Leon Williams, Pak Kin Wong, Tak-Sing Wong. Viscoelastic solid-repellent coatings for extreme water saving and global sanitation. Nature Sustainability, 2019; DOI: 10.1038/s41893-019-0421-0


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @03:03PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @03:03PM (#922379)

    Holy cow! What the hell are you eating that comes out elastic enough to bounce back up and hit your ass?

  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 20 2019, @03:06PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday November 20 2019, @03:06PM (#922383) Journal

    Flubber. Did you not see that movie?

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @03:57PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 20 2019, @03:57PM (#922417)

    Upsidaisium?