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The toilet brush need never leave its holder again. Scientists have created a super-slippery coating that helps usher excrement on its way without leaving traces behind.
The spray-on coating, which is slipperier than Teflon, reduces adhesion of even tenacious faeces by up to 90%, tests suggest, so far less water is needed to flush them away and leave the toilet clean.
Researchers at Penn State University believe the coating could slash household water consumption and prevent odours and disease-causing germs from building up in toilets.
“I was very happy to see how easily the faecal matter slid off our coated surface,” Tak-Sing Wong at Penn State University told the Guardian.
Wong became interested in soiled toilets in 2015 when researchers at Cranfield University contacted him for help. They were designing a toilet for use in the developing world, but found that odorous waste built up on the toilet bowl surface. “My research group was known for developing highly slippery coatings to repel sticky substances,” Wong explained.
He and his team spent the next few years developing a coating they call a “liquid entrenched smooth surface”, or Less. It has two parts. The base layer binds to the toilet bowl and has protruding “nanohairs”, each one a billion times thinner than a human hair. To this they add a fine coating of silicone oil, which is held in place by the base layer. In all, the coating takes less than five minutes to apply.
www.theguardian.com
The spray-on coating, which is slipperier than Teflon, reduces adhesion of even tenacious faeces by up to 90%, tests suggest, so far less water is needed to flush them away and leave the toilet clean.
Researchers at Penn State University believe the coating could slash household water consumption and prevent odours and disease-causing germs from building up in toilets.
“I was very happy to see how easily the faecal matter slid off our coated surface,” Tak-Sing Wong at Penn State University told the Guardian.
Wong became interested in soiled toilets in 2015 when researchers at Cranfield University contacted him for help. They were designing a toilet for use in the developing world, but found that odorous waste built up on the toilet bowl surface. “My research group was known for developing highly slippery coatings to repel sticky substances,” Wong explained.
He and his team spent the next few years developing a coating they call a “liquid entrenched smooth surface”, or Less. It has two parts. The base layer binds to the toilet bowl and has protruding “nanohairs”, each one a billion times thinner than a human hair. To this they add a fine coating of silicone oil, which is held in place by the base layer. In all, the coating takes less than five minutes to apply.
Scientists develop slippery toilet coating to stop poo sticking
Spray-on surface could prevent bacteria building up and reduce household water use
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