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.

A magnification of 150,000 times indicates that the nanostructures lie on the fabric. (Photo: Phys.org).

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.