You'll soon be able to wash your cotton clothes with a bit of sunshine thanks to a team of researchers from RMIT University of Melbourne, Australia. The team has developed a new cheap and efficient way to take unique nanostructures that have the ability to break down organic matter when exposed to light and grow them right onto textiles.
The new study marks a step toward nano-enhanced textiles that can clean themselves of stains and dirt through light exposure, which could mean placing them under a light bulb or leaving them out in the sun.
As of now, the process has numerous applications that have been proven effective, including in industries based around the use of a catalyst such as agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals and natural products. However, the team notes that it would not be hard to scale up the process for use at 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," said Rajesh Ramanathan, who participated in the research. "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 team used nanostructures composed of copper and silver due to their ability to effectively absorb light. When exposed to light, they receive an energy boost that creates "hot electrons," which subsequently release energy that can be used to degrade organic matter. Now, the goal is to take this process and integrate it into textiles at an industrial level.
In order to accomplish this, the team dipped textiles into a few nanostructure solutions, which created stable nanostructures grown directly onto textiles in as little as 30 minutes. After exposing these nano-enhanced textiles to light, it took as little as six minutes for them to clean themselves on their own.
"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 findings were published in the March 23 issue of Advanced Materials Interfaces.
