TECH
SPECIAL Nano-enhanced textiles self-cleans with light
RMIT
scientists develop an efficient process that enables clothes to clean
themselves of stains and grime simply by being put under a light bulb or worn
out in the sun
A spot of
sunshine is all it could take to get your washing do ne, thanks to pioneering
na no research into self-clea ning textiles. Researchers at RMIT University in
Melbourne, Australia, have developed a cheap and efficient new way to grow
special nanostructures--which can degrade organic matter when exposed to light
-directly onto textiles.
The work
paves the way towards nano-enhanced textiles that can spontaneously clean
themselves of stains and grime simply by being put under a light bulb or worn
out in the sun, reports phys.org.
Dr Rajesh
Ramanathan said the process developed by the team had a variety of applications
for catalysisbased industries such as agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals and
natural products, and could be easily scaled up to industrial levels.
“The
advantage of textiles is they already have a 3D structure so they are great at
absorbing light, which in turn speeds up the process of degrading organic
matter,“ he said.
“There's
more work to do to before we can start throwing out our washing machines, but
this advance lays a strong foundation for the future development of fully
self-cleaning textiles.“
The
researchers from the Ian Potter NanoBioSensing Facility and NanoBiotechnology
Research Lab at RMIT worked with copper and silverbased nanostructures, which
are known for their ability to absorb visible light. When the nanostructures
are exposed to light, they receive an energy boost that creates “hot
electrons“.These “hot electrons“ release a burst of energy that enables the
nanostructures to degrade organic matter.
The
challenge for researchers has been to bring the concept out of the lab by
working out how to build these nanostructures on an industrial scale and
permanently attach them to textiles.
The RMIT
team's novel approach was to grow the nanostructures directly onto the textiles
by dipping them into a few solutions, resulting in the development of stable
nanostructures within 30 minutes.
When
exposed to light, it took less than six minutes for some of the nano-enhanced
textiles to spontaneously clean themselves. “Our next step will be to test our
nano-enhanced textiles with organic compounds that could be more relevant to
consumers, to see how quickly they can handle common stains like tomato sauce
or wine,“ Ramanathan said.
The
research is published on March 23, 2016 in the high-impact journal Advanced
Materials Interfaces.
AGENCIES
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MM 23MAR16
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