How would you feel if you never had to do laundry again? That sounds too good to be true, after all disposable clothes would put quite a strain on our landfills and our wallets. Fortunately it’s not disposable clothes. Recently two Chinese scientists developed cotton that washes itself in sunlight. They use a coating made of titanium dioxide, one of the most widely used chemicals in the world, which will also stay intact after washing and drying.
This is not the first time self cleaning cotton has been made but in the past it required a lot of ultraviolet light exposure. The new coating, which has nitrogen, silver and iodine added to it, can rapidly and effectively clean clothes in just two hours of sunlight. Amazing to me is that even stains disappear, sometimes that doesn’t happen in the washer.
If you are buried under a never ending pile of laundry, self cleaning clothes sound good. Think about the money you will save in detergent, electricity and water use alone. Of course you will still have to “do” the laundry, but that would consist of hanging it out, taking it down, folding, ironing and putting away. When put that way it really doesn’t reduce the workload, just the expense.
Then think about what clean means to you. I don’t know about you but if my clothes never touched soap and water I would have a hard time believing they are clean. There are so many different things involved in clean laundry. Maybe it’s because we are used to things being a certain way. I can’t imagine taking stinky, smelly men’s work clothes and just hanging them on the line for a few hours and feeling good about the level of clean.
This coating is supposed to clean, deodorize and get rid of bacteria. It all sounds good, but I still think I prefer to dunk my grubby clothes in hot, soapy water.