Australia develops self-cleaning cloth when exposed to light

A new fabric uses light to break down organic compounds that make up the stain, being developed by researchers from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University) in Melbourne, Australia.

To do that, they inserted nanostructures made of copper and silver into the fabric , by dipping the fabric into a solution containing these metals within 30 minutes. When sunlight is exposed to the structure, high-energy electrons are released, disrupting organic molecules. During the test, the team found that the dirt on the fabric completely dissolved in about 6 minutes.

"The advantage of the fabric is that it has a 3D structure, which gives it great light absorption, which speeds up the decomposition of organic matter , " said Rajesh Ramanathan, PhD, lead researcher. , said. "There is still much work to be done, before we can say goodbye to the washing machine." However, this success has laid a solid foundation for the development of a self-cleaning cloth. hybrid ".

The drawback of the method above is that it can not clean the stains that we usually have to clean our heads , such as tomato sauce or red wine. This will inevitably be a problem that scientists need to address, before using this technology on an industrial scale.